A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in
India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414)
in Search of the Buddhist Books of
Discipline

Translated and annotated with a Corean recension of the Chinese
text byJames Legge

PREFACE

Several times during my long residence in Hong Kong I
endeavoured to read through the “Narrative of Fa-hien;”
but though interested with the graphic details of much of the work,
its columns bristled so constantly—now with his phonetic
representations of Sanskrit words, and now with his substitution
for them of their meanings in Chinese characters, and I was,
moreover, so much occupied with my own special labours on the
Confucian Classics, that my success was far from satisfactory. When
Dr. Eitel’s “Handbook for the Student of Chinese
Buddhism” appeared in 1870, the difficulty occasioned by the
Sanskrit words and names was removed, but the other difficulty
remained; and I was not able to look into the book again for
several years. Nor had I much inducement to do so in the two copies
of it which I had been able to procure, on poor paper, and printed
from blocks badly cut at first, and so worn with use as to yield
books the reverse of attractive in their appearance to the
student.

In the meantime I kept studying the subject of Buddhism from
various sources; and in 1878 began to lecture, here in Oxford, on
the Travels with my Davis Chinese scholar, who was at the same time
Boden Sanskrit scholar. As we went on, I wrote out a translation in
English for my own satisfaction of nearly half the narrative. In
the beginning of last year I made Fa-hien again the subject of
lecture, wrote out a second translation, independent of the former,
and pushed on till I had completed the whole.

The want of a good and clear text had been supplied by my
friend, Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio, who sent to me from Japan a copy, the
text of which is appended to the translation and notes, and of the
nature of which some account is given in the Introduction, and
towards the end of this Preface.

The present work consists of three parts: the Translation of
Fa-hien’s Narrative of his Travels; copious Notes; and the
Chinese Text of my copy from Japan.

It is for the Translation that I hold myself more especially
responsible. Portions of it were written out three times, and the
whole of it twice. While preparing my own version I made frequent
reference to previous translations:—those of M. Abel Remusat,
“Revu, complete, et augmente d’eclaircissements
nouveaux par MM. Klaproth et Landress” (Paris, 1836); of the
Rev. Samuel Beal (London, 1869), and his revision of it, prefixed
to his “Buddhist Records of the Western World”
(Trubner’s Oriental Series, 1884); and of Mr. Herbert A.
Giles, of H.M.‘s Consular Service in China (1877). To these I
have to add a series of articles on “Fa-hsien and his English
Translators,” by Mr. T. Watters, British Consul at I-Chang
(China Review, 1879, 1880). Those articles are of the highest
value, displaying accuracy of Chinese scholarship and an extensive
knowledge of Buddhism. I have regretted that Mr. Watters, while
reviewing others, did not himself write out and publish a version
of the whole of Fa-hien’s narrative. If he had done so, I
should probably have thought that, on the whole, nothing more
remained to be done for the distinguished Chinese pilgrim in the
way of translation. Mr. Watters had to judge of the comparative
merits of the versions of Beal and Giles, and pronounce on the many
points of contention between them. I have endeavoured to eschew
those matters, and have seldom made remarks of a critical nature in
defence of renderings of my own.

The Chinese narrative runs on without any break. It was Klaproth
who divided Remusat’s translation into forty chapters. The
division is helpful to the reader, and I have followed it excepting
in three or four instances. In the reprinted Chinese text the
chapters are separated by a circle in the column.

In transliterating the names of Chinese characters I have
generally followed the spelling of Morrison rather than the
Pekinese, which is now in vogue. We cannot tell exactly what the
pronunciation of them was, about fifteen hundred years ago, in the
time of Fa-hien; but the southern mandarin must be a shade nearer
to it than that of Peking at the present day. In transliterating
the Indian names I have for the most part followed Dr. Eitel, with
such modification as seemed good and in harmony with growing
usage.

For the Notes I can do little more than claim the merit of
selection and condensation. My first object in them was to explain
what in the text required explanation to an English reader. All
Chinese texts, and Buddhist texts especially, are new to foreign
students. One has to do for them what many hundreds of the ablest
scholars in Europe have done for the Greek and Latin Classics
during several hundred years, and what the thousands of critics and
commentators have been doing of our Sacred Scriptures for nearly
eighteen centuries. There are few predecessors in the field of
Chinese literature into whose labours translators of the present
century can enter. This will be received, I hope, as a sufficient
apology for the minuteness and length of some of the notes. A
second object in them was to teach myself first, and then others,
something of the history and doctrines of Buddhism. I have thought
that they might be learned better in connexion with a lively
narrative like that of Fa-hien than by reading didactic
descriptions and argumentative books. Such has been my own
experience. The books which I have consulted for these notes have
been many, besides Chinese works. My principal help has been the
full and masterly handbook of Eitel, mentioned already, and often
referred to as E.H. Spence Hardy’s “Eastern
Monachism” (E.M.) and “Manual of Buddhism” (M.B.)
have been constantly in hand, as well as Rhys Davids’
Buddhism, published by the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, his Hibbert Lectures, and his Buddhist Suttas in the
Sacred Books of the East, and other writings. I need not mention
other authorities, having endeavoured always to specify them where
I make use of them. My proximity and access to the Bodleian Library
and the Indian Institute have been of great advantage.

I may be allowed to say that, so far as my own study of it has
gone, I think there are many things in the vast field of Buddhist
literature which still require to be carefully handled. How far,
for instance, are we entitled to regard the present Sutras as
genuine and sufficiently accurate copies of those which were
accepted by the Councils before our Christian era? Can anything be
done to trace the rise of the legends and marvels of
Sakyamuni’s history, which were current so early (as it seems
to us) as the time of Fa-hien, and which startle us so frequently
by similarities between them and narratives in our Gospels? Dr.
Hermann Oldenberg, certainly a great authority on Buddhistic
subjects, says that “a biography of Buddha has not come down
to us from ancient times, from the age of the Pali texts; and, we
can safely say, no such biography existed then”
(“Buddha—His Life, His Doctrine, His Order,” as
translated by Hoey, p. 78). He has also (in the same work, pp. 99,
416, 417) come to the conclusion that the hitherto unchallenged
tradition that the Buddha was “a king’s son” must
be given up. The name “king’s son” (in Chinese
{...}), always used of the Buddha, certainly requires to be
understood in the highest sense. I am content myself to wait for
further information on these and other points, as the result of
prolonged and careful research.

Dr. Rhys Davids has kindly read the proofs of the Translation
and Notes, and I most certainly thank him for doing so, for his
many valuable corrections in the Notes, and for other suggestions
which I have received from him. I may not always think on various
points exactly as he does, but I am not more forward than he is to
say with Horace,—

“Nullius addictus jurare in verba
magistri.”

I have referred above, and also in the Introduction, to the
Corean text of Fa-hien’s narrative, which I received from Mr.
Nanjio. It is on the whole so much superior to the better-known
texts, that I determined to attempt to reproduce it at the end of
the little volume, so far as our resources here in Oxford would
permit. To do so has not been an easy task. The two fonts of
Chinese types in the Clarendon Press were prepared primarily for
printing the translation of our Sacred Scriptures, and then
extended so as to be available for printing also the Confucian
Classics; but the Buddhist work necessarily requires many types not
found in them, while many other characters in the Corean recension
are peculiar in their forms, and some are what Chinese dictionaries
denominate “vulgar.” That we have succeeded so well as
we have done is owing chiefly to the intelligence, ingenuity, and
untiring attention of Mr. J. C. Pembrey, the Oriental Reader.

The pictures that have been introduced were taken from a superb
edition of a History of Buddha, republished recently at Hang-chau
in Cheh-kiang, and profusely illustrated in the best style of
Chinese art. I am indebted for the use of it to the Rev. J. H.
Sedgwick, University Chinese Scholar.

James Legge.

Oxford: June, 1886.

The accompanying Sketch-Map, taken in connexion with the notes
on the different places in the Narrative, will give the reader a
sufficiently accurate knowledge of Fa-hien’s route.

There is no difficulty in laying it down after he crossed the
Indus from east to west into the Punjab, all the principal places,
at which he touched or rested, having been determined by Cunningham
and other Indian geographers and archaeologists. Most of the places
from Ch’ang-an to Bannu have also been identified. Woo-e has
been put down as near Kutcha, or Kuldja, in 43d 25s N., 81d 15s E.
The country of K’ieh-ch’a was probably Ladak, but I am
inclined to think that the place where the traveller crossed the
Indus and entered it must have been further east than Skardo. A
doubt is intimated on page 24 as to the identification of
T’o-leih with Darada, but Greenough’s “Physical
and Geological Sketch-Map of British India” shows
“Dardu Proper,” all lying on the east of the Indus,
exactly in the position where the Narrative would lead us to place
it. The point at which Fa-hien recrossed the Indus into Udyana on
the west of it is unknown. Takshasila, which he visited, was no
doubt on the west of the river, and has been incorrectly accepted
as the Taxila of Arrian in the Punjab. It should be written
Takshasira, of which the Chinese phonetisation will
allow;—see a note of Beal in his “Buddhist Records of
the Western World,” i. 138.

We must suppose that Fa-hien went on from Nan-king to
Ch’ang-an, but the Narrative does not record the fact of his
doing so.

INTRODUCTION

Life of Fa-Hien; Genuineness and Integrity of the Text of his
Narrative; Number of the Adherents of Buddhism.

1. Nothing of great importance is known about Fa-hien in
addition to what may be gathered from his own record of his
travels. I have read the accounts of him in the “Memoirs of
Eminent Monks,” compiled in A.D. 519, and a later work, the
“Memoirs of Marvellous Monks,” by the third emperor of
the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1403-1424), which, however, is nearly all
borrowed from the other; and all in them that has an appearance of
verisimilitude can be brought within brief compass.

His surname, they tell us, was Kung, and he was a native of
Wu-yang in P’ing-Yang, which is still the name of a large
department in Shan-hsi. He had three brothers older than himself;
but when they all died before shedding their first teeth, his
father devoted him to the service of the Buddhist society, and had
him entered as a Sramanera, still keeping him at home in the
family. The little fellow fell dangerously ill, and the father sent
him to the monastery, where he soon got well and refused to return
to his parents.

When he was ten years old, his father died; and an uncle,
considering the widowed solitariness and helplessness of the
mother, urged him to renounce the monastic life, and return to her,
but the boy replied, “I did not quit the family in compliance
with my father’s wishes, but because I wished to be far from
the dust and vulgar ways of life. This is why I chose
monkhood.” The uncle approved of his words and gave over
urging him. When his mother also died, it appeared how great had
been the affection for her of his fine nature; but after her burial
he returned to the monastery.

On one occasion he was cutting rice with a score or two of his
fellow-disciples, when some hungry thieves came upon them to take
away their grain by force. The other Sramaneras all fled, but our
young hero stood his ground, and said to the thieves, “If you
must have the grain, take what you please. But, Sirs, it was your
former neglect of charity which brought you to your present state
of destitution; and now, again, you wish to rob others. I am afraid
that in the coming ages you will have still greater poverty and
distress;—I am sorry for you beforehand.” With these
words he followed his companions into the monastery, while the
thieves left the grain and went away, all the monks, of whom there
were several hundred, doing homage to his conduct and courage.

When he had finished his noviciate and taken on him the
obligations of the full Buddhist orders, his earnest courage, clear
intelligence, and strict regulation of his demeanour were
conspicuous; and soon after, he undertook his journey to India in
search of complete copies of the Vinaya-pitaka. What follows this
is merely an account of his travels in India and return to China by
sea, condensed from his own narrative, with the addition of some
marvellous incidents that happened to him, on his visit to the
Vulture Peak near Rajagriha.

It is said in the end that after his return to China, he went to
the capital (evidently Nanking), and there, along with the Indian
Sramana Buddha-bhadra, executed translations of some of the works
which he had obtained in India; and that before he had done all
that he wished to do in this way, he removed to King-chow (in the
present Hoo-pih), and died in the monastery of Sin, at the age of
eighty-eight, to the great sorrow of all who knew him. It is added
that there is another larger work giving an account of his travels
in various countries.

Such is all the information given about our author, beyond what
he himself has told us. Fa-hien was his clerical name, and means
“Illustrious in the Law,” or “Illustrious master
of the Law.” The Shih which often precedes it is an
abbreviation of the name of Buddha as Sakyamuni, “the Sakya,
mighty in Love, dwelling in Seclusion and Silence,” and may
be taken as equivalent to Buddhist. It is sometimes said to have
belonged to “the eastern Tsin dynasty” (A.D. 317-419),
and sometimes to “the Sung,” that is, the Sung dynasty
of the House of Liu (A.D. 420-478). If he became a full monk at the
age of twenty, and went to India when he was twenty-five, his long
life may have been divided pretty equally between the two
dynasties.

2. If there were ever another and larger account of
Fa-hien’s travels than the narrative of which a translation
is now given, it has long ceased to be in existence.

In the Catalogue of the imperial library of the Suy dynasty
(A.D. 589-618), the name Fa-hien occurs four times. Towards the end
of the last section of it (page 22), after a reference to his
travels, his labours in translation at Kin-ling (another name for
Nanking), in conjunction with Buddha-bhadra, are described. In the
second section, page 15, we find “A Record of Buddhistic
Kingdoms;”—with a note, saying that it was the work of
the “Sramana, Fa-hien;” and again, on page 13, we have
“Narrative of Fa-hien in two Books,” and
“Narrative of Fa-hien’s Travels in one Book.” But
all these three entries may possibly belong to different copies of
the same work, the first and the other two being in separate
subdivisions of the Catalogue.

In the two Chinese copies of the narrative in my possession the
title is “Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms.” In the
Japanese or Corean recension subjoined to this translation, the
title is twofold; first, “Narrative of the Distinguished
Monk, Fa-hien;” and then, more at large, “Incidents of
Travels in India, by the Sramana of the Eastern Tsin, Fa-hien,
recorded by himself.”

There is still earlier attestation of the existence of our
little work than the Suy Catalogue. The Catalogue Raisonne of the
imperial library of the present dynasty (chap. 71) mentions two
quotations from it by Le Tao-yuen, a geographical writer of the
dynasty of the Northern Wei (A.D. 386-584), one of them containing
89 characters, and the other 276; both of them given as from the
“Narrative of Fa-hien.”

In all catalogues subsequent to that of Suy our work appears.
The evidence for its authenticity and genuineness is all that could
be required. It is clear to myself that the “Record of
Buddhistic Kingdoms” and the “Narrative of his Travels
by Fa-hien” were designations of one and the same work, and
that it is doubtful whether any larger work on the same subject was
ever current. With regard to the text subjoined to my translation,
it was published in Japan in 1779. The editor had before him four
recensions of the narrative; those of the Sung and Ming dynasties,
with appendixes on the names of certain characters in them; that of
Japan; and that of Corea. He wisely adopted the Corean text,
published in accordance with a royal rescript in 1726, so far as I
can make out; but the different readings of the other texts are all
given in top-notes, instead of foot-notes as with us, this being
one of the points in which customs in the east and west go by
contraries. Very occasionally, the editor indicates by a single
character, equivalent to “right” or
“wrong,” which reading in his opinion is to be
preferred. In the notes to the present republication of the Corean
text, S stands for Sung, M for Ming, and J for Japanese; R for
right, and W for wrong. I have taken the trouble to give all the
various readings (amounting to more than 300), partly as a
curiosity and to make my text complete, and partly to show how, in
the transcription of writings in whatever language, such variations
are sure to occur,

“maculae, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum cavit nature,”

while on the whole they very slightly affect the meaning of the
document.

The editors of the Catalogue Raisonne intimate their doubts of
the good taste and reliability of all Fa-hien’s statements.
It offends them that he should call central India the “Middle
Kingdom,” and China, which to them was the true and only
Middle Kingdom, but “a Border land;”—it offends
them as the vaunting language of a Buddhist writer, whereas the
reader will see in the expressions only an instance of what Fa-hien
calls his “simple straightforwardness.”

As an instance of his unreliability they refer to his account of
the Buddhism of Khoten, whereas it is well known, they say, that
the Khoteners from ancient times till now have been
Mohammedans;—as if they could have been so 170 years before
Mohammed was born, and 222 years before the year of the Hegira! And
this is criticism in China. The Catalogue was ordered by the
K’ien-lung emperor in 1722. Between three and four hundred of
the “Great Scholars” of the empire were engaged on it
in various departments, and thus egregiously ignorant did they show
themselves of all beyond the limits of their own country, and even
of the literature of that country itself.

Much of what Fa-hien tells his readers of Buddhist miracles and
legends is indeed unreliable and grotesque; but we have from him
the truth as to what he saw and heard.

3. In concluding this introduction I wish to call attention to
some estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world which have
become current, believing, as I do, that the smallest of them is
much above what is correct.

i. In a note on the first page of his work on the Bhilsa Topes
(1854), General Cunningham says: “The Christians number about
270 millions; the Buddhists about 222 millions, who are distributed
as follows:— China 170 millions, Japan 25, Anam 14, Siam 3,
Ava 8, Nepal 1, and Ceylon 1; total, 222 millions.”

ii. In his article on M. J. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire’s
“Le Bouddha et sa Religion,” republished in his
“Chips from a German Workshop,” vol. i. (1868),
Professor Max Muller (p. 215) says, “The young prince became
the founder of a religion which, after more than two thousand
years, is still professed by 455 millions of human beings,”
and he appends the following note: “Though truth is not
settled by majorities, it would be interesting to know which
religion counts at the present moment the largest numbers of
believers. Berghaus, in his ‘Physical Atlas,’ gives the
following division of the human race according to
religion:—‘Buddhists 31.2 per cent, Christians 30.7,
Mohammedans 15.7, Brahmanists 13.4, Heathens 8.7, and Jews
0.3.’ As Berghaus does not distinguish the Buddhists in China
from the followers of Confucius and Laotse, the first place on the
scale really belongs to Christianity. It is difficult to say to
what religion a man belongs, as the same person may profess two or
three. The emperor himself, after sacrificing according to the
ritual of Confucius, visits a Tao-sse temple, and afterwards bows
before an image of Fo in a Buddhist chapel. (‘Melanges
Asiatiques de St. Petersbourg,’ vol. ii. p. 374.)”

iii. Both these estimates are exceeded by Dr. T. W. Rhys Davids
(intimating also the uncertainty of the statements, and that
numbers are no evidence of truth) in the introduction to his
“Manual of Buddhism.” The Buddhists there appear as
amounting in all to 500 millions:—30 millions of Southern
Buddhists, in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Anam, and India (Jains); and 470
millions of North Buddhists, of whom nearly 33 millions are
assigned to Japan, and 414,686,974 to the eighteen provinces of
China proper. According to him, Christians amount to about 26 per
cent of mankind, Hindus to about 13, Mohammedans to about 12 1/2,
Buddhists to about 40, and Jews to about 1/2.

In regard to all these estimates, it will be observed that the
immense numbers assigned to Buddhism are made out by the multitude
of Chinese with which it is credited. Subtract Cunningham’s
170 millions of Chinese from his total of 222, and there remains
only 52 millions of Buddhists. Subtract Davids’ (say) 414 1/2
millions of Chinese from his total of 500, and there remain only 85
1/2 millions for Buddhism. Of the numbers assigned to other
countries, as well as of their whole populations, I am in
considerable doubt, excepting in the cases of Ceylon and India; but
the greatness of the estimates turns upon the immense multitudes
said to be in China. I do not know what total population Cunningham
allowed for that country, nor on what principal he allotted 170
millions of it to Buddhism;—perhaps he halved his estimate of
the whole, whereas Berghaus and Davids allotted to it the highest
estimates that have been given of the people.

But we have no certain information of the population of China.
At an interview with the former Chinese ambassador, Kwo Sung-tao,
in Paris, in 1878, I begged him to write out for me the amount,
with the authority for it, and he assured me that it could not be
done. I have read probably almost everything that has been
published on the subject, and endeavoured by methods of my own to
arrive at a satisfactory conclusion;—without reaching a
result which I can venture to lay before the public. My impression
has been that 400 millions is hardly an exaggeration.

But supposing that we had reliable returns of the whole
population, how shall we proceed to apportion that among
Confucianists, Taoists, and Buddhists? Confucianism is the
orthodoxy of China. The common name for it is Ju Chiao, “the
Doctrines held by the Learned Class,” entrance into the
circle of which is, with a few insignificant exceptions, open to
all the people. The mass of them and the masses under their
influence are preponderatingly Confucian; and in the observance of
ancestral worship, the most remarkable feature of the religion
proper of China from the earliest times, of which Confucius was not
the author but the prophet, an overwhelming majority are regular
and assiduous.

Among “the strange principles” which the emperor of
the K’ang-hsi period, in one of his famous Sixteen Precepts,
exhorted his people to “discountenance and put away, in order
to exalt the correct doctrine,” Buddhism and Taoism were both
included. If, as stated in the note quoted from Professor Muller,
the emperor countenances both the Taoist worship and the Buddhist,
he does so for reasons of state;—to please especially his
Buddhist subjects in Thibet and Mongolia, and not to offend the
many whose superstitious fancies incline to Taoism.

When I went out and in as a missionary among the Chinese people
for about thirty years, it sometimes occurred to me that only the
inmates of their monasteries and the recluses of both systems
should be enumerated as Buddhists and Taoists; but I was in the end
constrained to widen that judgment, and to admit a considerable
following of both among the people, who have neither received the
tonsure nor assumed the yellow top. Dr. Eitel, in concluding his
discussion of this point in his “Lecture on Buddhism, an
Event in History,” says: “It is not too much to say
that most Chinese are theoretically Confucianists, but emotionally
Buddhists or Taoists. But fairness requires us to add that, though
the mass of the people are more or less influenced by Buddhist
doctrines, yet the people, as a whole, have no respect for the
Buddhist church, and habitually sneer at Buddhist priests.”
For the “most” in the former of these two sentences I
would substitute “nearly all;” and between my
friend’s “but” and “emotionally” I
would introduce “many are,” and would not care to
contest his conclusion farther. It does seem to me preposterous to
credit Buddhism with the whole of the vast population of China, the
great majority of whom are Confucianists. My own opinion is, that
its adherents are not so many as those even of Mohammedanism, and
that instead of being the most numerous of the religions (so
called) of the world, it is only entitled to occupy the fifth
place, ranking below Christianity, Confucianism, Brahmanism, and
Mohammedanism, and followed, some distance off, by Taoism. To make
a table of per-centages of mankind, and assign to each system its
proportion, is to seem to be wise where we are deplorably ignorant;
and, moreover, if our means of information were much better than
they are, our figures would merely show the outward adherence. A
fractional per-centage might tell more for one system than a very
large integral one for another.

CHAPTER I

FROM CH’ANG-GAN TO THE SANDY DESERT

Fa-hien had been living in Ch’ang-gan.1
Deploring the mutilated and imperfect state of the collection of
the Books of Discipline, in the second year of the period
Hwang-che, being the Ke-hae year of the cycle,2 he
entered into an engagement with Kwuy-king, Tao-ching, Hwuy-ying,
and Hwuy-wei,3 that they should go to India and
seek for the Disciplinary Rules.4

After starting from Ch’ang-gan, they passed through
Lung,5 and came to the kingdom of
K’een-kwei,6 where they stopped for the
summer retreat.7 When that was over, they went
forward to the kingdom of Now-t’an,8 crossed
the mountain of Yang-low, and reached the emporium of
Chang-yih.9 There they found the country so much
disturbed that travelling on the roads was impossible for them. Its
king, however, was very attentive to them, kept them (in his
capital), and acted the part of their danapati.10

Here they met with Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, Sang-shao, Pao-yun, and
Sang-king;11 and in pleasant association with
them, as bound on the same journey with themselves, they passed the
summer retreat (of that year)12 together,
resuming after it their travelling, and going on to
T’un-hwang,13 (the chief town) in the
frontier territory of defence extending for about 80 le from east
to west, and about 40 from north to south. Their company, increased
as it had been, halted there for some days more than a month, after
which Fa-hien and his four friends started first in the suite of an
envoy,14 having separated (for a time) from
Pao-yun and his associates.

Le Hao,15 the prefect of T’un-hwang, had
supplied them with the means of crossing the desert (before them),
in which there are many evil demons and hot winds. (Travellers) who
encounter them perish all to a man. There is not a bird to be seen
in the air above, nor an animal on the ground below. Though you
look all round most earnestly to find where you can cross, you know
not where to make your choice, the only mark and indication being
the dry bones of the dead (left upon the sand).16

NOTES

1 Ch’ang-gan is
still the name of the principal district (and its city) in the
department of Se-gan, Shen-se. It had been the capital of the first
empire of Han (B.C. 202-A.D. 24), as it subsequently was that of
Suy (A.D. 589-618). The empire of the eastern Tsin, towards the
close of which Fa-hien lived, had its capital at or near Nan-king,
and Ch’ang-gan was the capital of the principal of the three
Ts’in kingdoms, which, with many other minor ones, maintained
a semi-independence of Tsin, their rulers sometimes even assuming
the title of emperor.

2 The period Hwang-che
embraced from A.D. 399 to 414, being the greater portion of the
reign of Yao Hing of the After Ts’in, a powerful prince. He
adopted Hwang-che for the style of his reign in 399, and the
cyclical name of that year was Kang-tsze. It is not possible at
this distance of time to explain, if it could be explained, how
Fa-hien came to say that Ke-hae was the second year of the period.
It seems most reasonable to suppose that he set out on his
pilgrimage in A.D. 399, the cycle name of which was Ke-hae, as {.},
the second year, instead of {.}, the first, might easily creep into
the text. In the “Memoirs of Eminent Monks” it is said
that our author started in the third year of the period Lung-gan of
the eastern Tsin, which was A.D. 399.

3 These, like Fa-hien
itself, are all what we might call “clerical” names,
appellations given to the parties as monks or sramanas.

4 The Buddhist tripitaka
or canon consists of three collections, containing, according to
Eitel (p. 150), “doctrinal aphorisms (or statements,
purporting to be from Buddha himself); works on discipline; and
works on metaphysics:”—called sutra, vinaya, and
abhidharma; in Chinese, king {.}, leuh {.}, and lun {.}, or texts,
laws or rules, and discussions. Dr. Rhys Davids objects to the
designation of “metaphysics” as used of the abhidharma
works, saying that “they bear much more the relation to
‘dharma’ which ‘by-law’ bears to
‘law’ than that which ‘metaphysics’ bears
to ‘physics’” (Hibbert Lectures, p. 49). However
this be, it was about the vinaya works that Fa-hien was chiefly
concerned. He wanted a good code of the rules for the government of
“the Order” in all its internal and external
relations.

5 Lung embraced the
western part of Shen-se and the eastern part of Kan-suh. The name
remains in Lung Chow, in the extreme west of Shen-se.

6 K’een-kwei was
the second king of “the Western Ts’in.” His
family was of northern or barbarous origin, from the tribe of the
Seen-pe, with the surname of K’eih-fuh. The first king was
Kwo-kin, and received his appointment from the sovereign of the
chief Ts’in kingdom in 385. He was succeeded in 388 by his
brother, the K’een-kwei of the text, who was very prosperous
in 398, and took the title of king of Ts’in. Fa-hien would
find him at his capital, somewhere in the present department of
Lan-chow, Kan-suh.

7 Under varshas or
vashavasana (Pali, vassa; Spence Hardy, vass), Eitel (p. 163)
says:—“One of the most ancient institutions of Buddhist
discipline, requiring all ecclesiastics to spend the rainy season
in a monastery in devotional exercises. Chinese Buddhists naturally
substituted the hot season for the rainy (from the 16th day of the
5th to the 15th of the 9th Chinese month).”

8 During the troubled
period of the Tsin dynasty, there were five (usurping) Leang
sovereignties in the western part of the empire ({.} {.}). The name
Leang remains in the department of Leang-chow in the northern part
of Kan-suh. The “southern Leang” arose in 397 under a
Tuh-fah Wu-ku, who was succeeded in 399 by a brother, Le-luh-koo;
and he again by his brother, the Now-t’an of the text, in
402, who was not yet king therefore when Fa-hien and his friends
reached his capital. How he is represented as being so may be
accounted for in various ways, of which it is not necessary to
write.

9 Chang-yih is still the
name of a district in Kan-chow department, Kan-suh. It is a long
way north and west from Lan-chow, and not far from the Great Wall.
Its king at this time was, probably, Twan-yeh of “the
northern Leang.”

10 Dana is the name
for religious charity, the first of the six paramitas, or means of
attaining to nirvana; and a danapati is “one who practises
dana and thereby crosses {.} the sea of misery.” It is given
as “a title of honour to all who support the cause of
Buddhism by acts of charity, especially to founders and patrons of
monasteries;”—see Eitel, p. 29.

11 Of these pilgrims
with their clerical names, the most distinguished was Pao-yun, who
translated various Sanskrit works on his return from India, of
which only one seems to be now existing. He died in 449. See
Nanjio’s Catalogue of the Tripitaka, col. 417.

12 This was the second
summer since the pilgrims left Ch’ang-gan. We are now
therefore, probably, in A.D. 400.

13 T’un-hwang
(lat. 39d 40s N.; lon. 94d 50s E.) is still the name of one of the
two districts constituting the department of Gan-se, the most
western of the prefectures of Kan-suh; beyond the termination of
the Great Wall.

14 Who this envoy was,
and where he was going, we do not know. The text will not admit of
any other translation.

15 Le Hao was a native
of Lung-se, a man of learning, able and kindly in his government.
He was appointed governor or prefect of T’un-hwang by the
king of “the northern Leang,” in 400; and there he
sustained himself, becoming by and by “duke of western
Leang,” till he died in 417.

16 “The river of
sand;” the great desert of Kobi or Gobi; having various other
names. It was a great task which the pilgrims had now before
them,—to cross this desert. The name of “river”
in the Chinese misleads the reader, and he thinks of crossing it as
of crossing a stream; but they had to traverse it from east to
west. In his “Vocabulary of Proper Names,” p. 23, Dr.
Porter Smith says:—“It extends from the eastern
frontier of Mongolia, south-westward to the further frontier of
Turkestan, to within six miles of Ilchi, the chief town of Khoten.
It thus comprises some twenty-three degrees of longitude in length,
and from three to ten degrees of latitude in breadth, being about
2,100 miles in its greatest length. In some places it is arable.
Some idea may be formed of the terror with which this ‘Sea of
Sand,’ with its vast billows of shifting sands, is regarded,
from the legend that in one of the storms 360 cities were all
buried within the space of twenty-four hours.” So also
Gilmour’s “Among the Mongols,” chap. 5.

CHAPTER II

ON TO SHEN-SHEN AND THENCE TO KHOTEN

After travelling for seventeen days, a distance we may calculate
of about 1500 le, (the pilgrims) reached the kingdom of
Shen-shen,1 a country rugged and hilly, with a
thin and barren soil. The clothes of the common people are coarse,
and like those worn in our land of Han,2 some
wearing felt and others coarse serge or cloth of hair;— this
was the only difference seen among them. The king professed (our)
Law, and there might be in the country more than four thousand
monks,3 who were all students of the
hinayana.4 The common people of this and other
kingdoms (in that region), as well as the sramans,5 all practise the rules of India,6 only
that the latter do so more exactly, and the former more loosely. So
(the travellers) found it in all the kingdoms through which they
went on their way from this to the west, only that each had its own
peculiar barbarous speech.7 (The monks), however,
who had (given up the worldly life) and quitted their families,
were all students of Indian books and the Indian language. Here
they stayed for about a month, and then proceeded on their journey,
fifteen days walking to the north-west bringing them to the country
of Woo-e.8 In this also there were more than four
thousand monks, all students of the hinayana. They were very strict
in their rules, so that sramans from the territory of
Ts’in9 were all unprepared for their
regulations. Fa-hien, through the management of Foo Kung-sun,
/maitre d’hotellerie/,10 was able to remain
(with his company in the monastery where they were received) for
more than two months, and here they were rejoined by Pao-yun and
his friends.11 (At the end of that time) the
people of Woo-e neglected the duties of propriety and
righteousness, and treated the strangers in so niggardly a manner
that Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, and Hwuy-wei went back towards
Kao-ch’ang,12 hoping to obtain there the
means of continuing their journey. Fa-hien and the rest, however,
through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go straight
forward in a south-west direction. They found the country
uninhabited as they went along. The difficulties which they
encountered in crossing the streams and on their route, and the
sufferings which they endured, were unparalleled in human
experience, but in the course of a month and five days they
succeeded in reaching Yu-teen.13

NOTES

1 An account is given
of the kingdom of Shen-shen in the 96th of the Books of the first
Han dynasty, down to its becoming a dependency of China, about B.C.
80. The greater portion of that is now accessible to the English
reader in a translation by Mr. Wylie in the “Journal of the
Anthropological Institute,” August, 1880. Mr. Wylie
says:— “Although we may not be able to identify
Shen-shen with certainty, yet we have sufficient indications to
give an appropriate idea of its position, as being south of and not
far from lake Lob.” He then goes into an exhibition of those
indications, which I need not transcribe. It is sufficient for us
to know that the capital city was not far from Lob or Lop Nor, into
which in lon. 38d E. the Tarim flows. Fa-hien estimated its
distance to be 1500 le from T’un-hwang. He and his companions
must have gone more than twenty-five miles a day to accomplish the
journey in seventeen days.

2 This is the name
which Fa-hien always uses when he would speak of China, his native
country, as a whole, calling it from the great dynasty which had
ruled it, first and last, for between four and five centuries.
Occasionally, as we shall immediately see, he speaks of “the
territory of Ts’in or Ch’in,” but intending
thereby only the kingdom or Ts’in, having its capital, as
described in the first note on the last chapter, in
Ch’ang-gan.

3 So I prefer to
translate the character {.} (sang) rather than by
“priests.” Even in Christianity, beyond the priestly
privilege which belongs to all believers, I object to the ministers
of any denomination or church calling themselves or being called
“priests;” and much more is the name inapplicable to
the sramanas or bhikshus of Buddhism which acknowledges no God in
the universe, no soul in man, and has no services of sacrifice or
prayer in its worship. The only difficulty in the use of
“monks” is caused by the members of the sect in Japan
which, since the middle of the fifteenth century, has abolished the
prohibition against marrying on the part of its ministers, and
other prohibitions in diet and dress. Sang and sang-kea represent
the Sanskrit sangha, constituted by at least four members, and
empowered to hear confession, to grant absolution, to admit persons
to holy orders, &c.; secondly, the third constituent of the
Buddhistic Trinity, a deification of the /communio sanctorum/, or
the Buddhist order. The name is used by our author of the monks
collectively or individually as belonging to the class, and may be
considered as synonymous with the name sramana, which will
immediately claim our attention.

4 Meaning the
“small vehicle, or conveyance.” There are in Buddhism
the triyana, or “three different means of salvation, i.e. of
conveyance across the samsara, or sea of transmigration, to the
shores of nirvana. Afterwards the term was used to designate the
different phases of development through which the Buddhist dogma
passed, known as the mahayana, hinayana, and madhyamayana.”
“The hinayana is the simplest vehicle of salvation,
corresponding to the first of the three degrees of saintship.
Characteristics of it are the preponderance of active moral
asceticism, and the absence of speculative mysticism and
quietism.” E. H., pp. 151-2, 45, and 117.

5 The name for India is
here the same as in the former chapter and throughout the
book,—T’een-chuh ({.} {.}), the chuh being pronounced,
probably, in Fa-hien’s time as tuk. How the earliest name for
India, Shin-tuk or duk=Scinde, came to be changed into Thien-tuk,
it would take too much space to explain. I believe it was done by
the Buddhists, wishing to give a good auspicious name to the
fatherland of their Law, and calling it “the Heavenly
Tuk,” just as the Mohammedans call Arabia “the Heavenly
region” ({.} {.}), and the court of China itself is called
“the Celestial” ({.} {.}).

6 Sraman may in English
take the place of Sramana (Pali, Samana; in Chinese, Sha-man), the
name for Buddhist monks, as those who have separated themselves
from (left) their families, and quieted their hearts from all
intrusion of desire and lust. “It is employed, first, as a
general name for ascetics of all demoninations, and, secondly, as a
general designation of Buddhistic monks.” E. H., pp. 130,
131.

8 Woo-e has not been
identified. Watters (“China Review,” viii. 115)
says:—“We cannot be far wrong if we place it in
Kharaschar, or between that and Kutscha.” It must have been a
country of considerable size to have so many monks in it.

9 This means in one
sense China, but Fa-hien, in his use of the name, was only thinking
of the three Ts’in states of which I have spoken in a
previous note; perhaps only of that from the capital of which he
had himself set out.

10 This sentence
altogether is difficult to construe, and Mr. Watters, in the
“China Review,” was the first to disentangle more than
one knot in it. I am obliged to adopt the reading of {.} {.} in the
Chinese editions, instead of the {.} {.} in the Corean text. It
seems clear that only one person is spoken of as assisting the
travellers, and his name, as appears a few sentences farther on,
was Foo Kung-sun. The {.} {.} which immediately follows the surname
Foo {.}, must be taken as the name of his office, corresponding, as
the {.} shows, to that of /le maitre d’hotellerie/ in a Roman
Catholic abbey. I was once indebted myself to the kind help of such
an officer at a monastery in Canton province. The Buddhistic name
for him is uddesika=overseer. The Kung-sun that follows his surname
indicates that he was descended from some feudal lord in the old
times of the Chow dynasty. We know indeed of no ruling house which
had the surname of Foo, but its adoption by the grandson of a ruler
can be satisfactorily accounted for; and his posterity continued to
call themselves Kung-sun, duke or lord’s grandson, and so
retain the memory of the rank of their ancestor.

12 The country of the
Ouighurs, the district around the modern Turfan or Tangut.

13 Yu-teen is better
known as Khoten. Dr. P. Smith gives (p. 11) the following
description of it:—“A large district on the south-west
of the desert of Gobi, embracing all the country south of Oksu and
Yarkand, along the northern base of the Kwun-lun mountains, for
more than 300 miles from east to west. The town of the same name,
now called Ilchi, is in an extensive plain on the Khoten river, in
lat. 37d N., and lon. 80d 35s E. After the Tungani insurrection
against Chinese rule in 1862, the Mufti Haji Habeeboolla was made
governor of Khoten, and held the office till he was murdered by
Yakoob Beg, who became for a time the conqueror of all Chinese
Turkestan. Khoten produces fine linen and cotton stuffs, jade
ornaments, copper, grain, and fruits.” The name in Sanskrit
is Kustana. (E. H., p. 60).

CHAPTER III

KHOTEN. PROCESSIONS OF IMAGES. THE KING’S NEW
MONASTERY.

Yu-teen is a pleasant and prosperous kingdom, with a numerous
and flourishing population. The inhabitants all profess our Law,
and join together in its religious music for their
enjoyment.1 The monks amount to several myriads,
most of whom are students of the mahayana.2 They
all receive their food from the common store.3
Throughout the country the houses of the people stand apart like
(separate) stars, and each family has a small tope4 reared in front of its door. The smallest of these may
be twenty cubits high, or rather more.5 They make
(in the monasteries) rooms for monks from all quarters,5 the use of which is given to travelling monks who may
arrive, and who are provided with whatever else they require.

The lord of the country lodged Fa-hien and the others
comfortably, and supplied their wants, in a monastery6 called Gomati,6 of the mahayana school.
Attached to it there are three thousand monks, who are called to
their meals by the sound of a bell. When they enter the refectory,
their demeanour is marked by a reverent gravity, and they take
their seats in regular order, all maintaining a perfect silence. No
sound is heard from their alms-bowls and other utensils. When any
of these pure men7 require food, they are not
allowed to call out (to the attendants) for it, but only make signs
with their hands.

Hwuy-king, Tao-ching, and Hwuy-tah set out in advance towards
the country of K’eeh-ch’a;8 but
Fa-hien and the others, wishing to see the procession of images,
remained behind for three months. There are in this country
four9 great monasteries, not counting the smaller
ones. Beginning on the first day of the fourth month, they sweep
and water the streets inside the city, making a grand display in
the lanes and byways. Over the city gate they pitch a large tent,
grandly adorned in all possible ways, in which the king and queen,
with their ladies brilliantly arrayed,10 take up
their residence (for the time).

The monks of the Gomati monastery, being mahayana students, and
held in great reverence by the king, took precedence of all others
in the procession. At a distance of three or four le from the city,
they made a four-wheeled image car, more than thirty cubits high,
which looked like the great hall (of a monastery) moving along. The
seven precious substances11 were grandly
displayed about it, with silken streamers and canopies hanging all
around. The (chief) image12 stood in the middle
of the car, with two Bodhisattvas13 in attendance
upon it, while devas14 were made to follow in
waiting, all brilliantly carved in gold and silver, and hanging in
the air. When (the car) was a hundred paces from the gate, the king
put off his crown of state, changed his dress for a fresh suit, and
with bare feet, carrying in his hands flowers and incense, and with
two rows of attending followers, went out at the gate to meet the
image; and, with his head and face (bowed to the ground), he did
homage at its feet, and then scattered the flowers and burnt the
incense. When the image was entering the gate, the queen and the
brilliant ladies with her in the gallery above scattered far and
wide all kinds of flowers, which floated about and fell
promiscuously to the ground. In this way everything was done to
promote the dignity of the occasion. The carriages of the
monasteries were all different, and each one had its own day for
the procession. (The ceremony) began on the first day of the fourth
month, and ended on the fourteenth, after which the king and queen
returned to the palace.

Seven or eight le to the west of the city there is what is
called the King’s New Monastery, the building of which took
eighty years, and extended over three reigns. It may be 250 cubits
in height, rich in elegant carving and inlaid work, covered above
with gold and silver, and finished throughout with a combination of
all the precious substances. Behind the tope there has been built a
Hall of Buddha,15 of the utmost magnificence and
beauty, the beams, pillars, venetianed doors, and windows being all
overlaid with gold-leaf. Besides this, the apartments for the monks
are imposingly and elegantly decorated, beyond the power of words
to express. Of whatever things of highest value and preciousness
the kings in the six countries on the east of the (Ts’ung)
range of mountains16 are possessed, they
contribute the greater portion (to this monastery), using but a
small portion of them themselves.17

NOTES

1 This fondness for
music among the Khoteners is mentioned by Hsuan and Ch’wang
and others.

2 Mahayana. It is a
later form of the Buddhist doctrine, the second phase of its
development corresponding to the state of a Bodhisattva, who, being
able to transport himself and all mankind to nirvana, may be
compared to a huge vehicle. See Davids on the “Key-note of
the ‘Great Vehicle,’” Hibbert Lectures, p.
254.

3 Fa-hien supplies
sufficient information of how the common store or funds of the
monasteries were provided, farther on in chapters xvi and xxxix, as
well as in other passages. As the point is important, I will give
here, from Davids’ fifth Hibbert Lecture (p. 178), some of
the words of the dying Buddha, taken from “The Book of the
Great Decease,” as illustrating the statement in this
text:—“So long as the brethren shall persevere in
kindness of action, speech, and thought among the saints, both in
public and private; so long as they shall divide without
partiality, and share in common with the upright and holy, all such
things as they receive in accordance with the just provisions of
the order, down even to the mere contents of a begging bowl; . . .
so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but to
prosper.”

4 The Chinese {.}
(t’ah; in Cantonese, t’ap), as used by Fa-hien, is, no
doubt, a phonetisation of the Sanskrit stupa or Pali thupa; and it
is well in translating to use for the structures described by him
the name of topes,—made familiar by Cunningham and other
Indian antiquarians. In the thirteenth chapter there is an account
of one built under the superintendence of Buddha himself, “as
a model for all topes in future.” They were usually in the
form of bell-shaped domes, and were solid, surmounted by a long
tapering pinnacle formed with a series of rings, varying in number.
But their form, I suppose, was often varied; just as we have in
China pagodas of different shapes. There are several topes now in
the Indian Institute at Oxford, brought from Buddha Gaya, but the
largest of them is much smaller than “the smallest” of
those of Khoten. They were intended chiefly to contain the relics
of Buddha and famous masters of his Law; but what relics could
there be in the Tiratna topes of chapter xvi?

5 The meaning here is
much disputed. The author does not mean to say that the
monk’s apartments were made “square,” but that
the monasteries were made with many guest-chambers or spare
rooms.

6 The Sanskrit term for
a monastery is used here,—Sangharama, “gardens of the
assembly,” originally denoting only “the surrounding
park, but afterwards transferred to the whole of the
premises” (E. H., p. 118). Gomati, the name of this
monastery, means “rich in cows.”

7 A denomination for
the monks as vimala, “undefiled” or “pure.”
Giles makes it “the menials that attend on the monks,”
but I have not met with it in that application.

8
K’eeh-ch’a has not been clearly identified. Remusat
made it Cashmere; Klaproth, Iskardu; Beal makes it Kartchou; and
Eitel, Khas’a, “an ancient tribe on the Paropamisus,
the Kasioi of Ptolemy.” I think it was Ladak, or some
well-known place in it. Hwuy-tah, unless that name be an alias,
appears here for the first time.

9 Instead of
“four,” the Chinese copies of the text have
“fourteen;” but the Corean reading is, probably, more
correct.

10 There may have
been, as Giles says, “maids of honour;” but the
character does not say so.

13 A Bodhisattva is
one whose essence has become intelligence; a Being who will in some
future birth as a man (not necessarily or usually the next) attain
to Buddhahood. The name does not include those Buddhas who have not
yet attained to pari-nirvana. The symbol of the state is an
elephant fording a river. Popularly, its abbreviated form
P’u-sa is used in China for any idol or image; here the name
has its proper signification.

14 {.} {.}, “all
the thien,” or simply “the thien” taken as
plural. But in Chinese the character called thien {.} denotes
heaven, or Heaven, and is interchanged with Ti and Shang Ti,
meaning God. With the Buddhists it denotes the devas or Brahmanic
gods, or all the inhabitants of the six devalokas. The usage shows
the antagonism between Buddhism and Brahmanism, and still more that
between it and Confucianism.

15 Giles and Williams
call this “the oratory of Buddha.” But
“oratory” gives the idea of a small apartment, whereas
the name here leads the mind to think of a large
“hall.” I once accompanied the monks of a large
monastery from their refectory to the Hall of Buddha, which was a
lofty and spacious apartment splendidly fitted up.

16 The Ts’ung,
or “Onion” range, called also the Belurtagh mountains,
including the Karakorum, and forming together the connecting links
between the more northern T’een-shan and the Kwun-lun
mountains on the north of Thibet. It would be difficult to name the
six countries which Fa-hien had in mind.

17 This seems to be
the meaning here. My first impression of it was that the author
meant to say that the contributions which they received were spent
by the monks mainly on the buildings, and only to a small extent
for themselves; and I still hesitate between that view and the one
in the version.

There occurs here the binomial phrase kung-yang {.} {.}, which
is one of the most common throughout the narrative, and is used not
only of support in the way of substantial contributions given to
monks, monasteries, and Buddhism, but generally of all Buddhistic
worship, if I may use that term in the connexion. Let me here quote
two or three sentences from Davids’ Manual (pp.
168-170):—“The members of the order are secured from
want. There is no place in the Buddhist scheme for churches; the
offering of flowers before the sacred tree or image of the Buddha
takes the place of worship. Buddhism does not acknowledge the
efficacy of prayers; and in the warm countries where Buddhists
live, the occasional reading of the law, or preaching of the word,
in public, can take place best in the open air, by moonlight, under
a simple roof of trees or palms. There are five principal kinds of
meditation, which in Buddhism takes the place of
prayer.”

CHAPTER IV

THROUGH THE TS’UNG OR “ONION” MOUNTAINS TO
K’EEH-CH’A;—PROBABLY SKARDO, OR SOME CITY MORE TO
THE EAST IN LADAK

When the processions of images in the fourth month were over,
Sang-shao, by himself alone, followed a Tartar who was an earnest
follower of the Law,1 and proceeded towards
Kophene.2 Fa-hien and the others went forward to
the kingdom of Tsze-hoh, which it took them twenty-five days to
reach.3 Its king was a strenuous follower of our
Law,4 and had (around him) more than a thousand
monks, mostly students of the mahayana. Here (the travellers) abode
fifteen days, and then went south for four days, when they found
themselves among the Ts’ung-ling mountains, and reached the
country of Yu-hwuy,5 where they halted and kept
their retreat.6 When this was over, they went on
among the hills7 for twenty-five days, and got to
K’eeh-ch’a,8 there rejoining
Hwuy-king9 and his two companions.

NOTES

1 This Tartar is called
a {.} {.}, “a man of the Tao,” or faith of Buddha. It
occurs several times in the sequel, and denotes the man who is not
a Buddhist outwardly only, but inwardly as well, whose faith is
always making itself manifest in his ways. The name may be used of
followers of other systems of faith besides Buddhism.

2 See the account of
the kingdom of Kophene, in the 96th Book of the first Han Records,
p. 78, where its capital is said to be 12,200 le from
Ch’ang-gan. It was the whole or part of the present
Cabulistan. The name of Cophene is connected with the river Kophes,
supposed to be the same as the present Cabul river, which falls
into the Indus, from the west, at Attock, after passing Peshawar.
The city of Cabul, the capital of Afghanistan, may be the Kophene
of the text; but we do not know that Sang-shao and his guide got so
far west. The text only says that they set out from Khoten
“towards it.”

3 Tsze-hoh has not been
identified. Beal thinks it was Yarkand, which, however, was
north-west from Khoten. Watters (“China Review,” p.
135) rather approves the suggestion of “Tashkurgan in
Sirikul” for it. As it took Fa-hien twenty-five days to reach
it, it must have been at least 150 miles from Khoten.

4 The king is described
here by a Buddhistic phrase, denoting the possession of viryabala,
“the power of energy; persevering exertion— one of the
five moral powers” (E. H., p. 170).

5 Nor has Yu-hwuy been
clearly identified. Evidently it was directly south from Tsze-hoh,
and among the “Onion” mountains. Watters hazards the
conjecture that it was the Aktasch of our present maps.

6 This was the retreat
already twice mentioned as kept by the pilgrims in the summer, the
different phraseology, “quiet rest,” without any
mention of the season, indicating their approach to India, E. H.,
p. 168. Two, if not three, years had elapsed since they left
Ch’ang-gan. Are we now with them in 402?

7 This is the Corean
reading {.}, much preferable to the {.} of the Chinese
editions.

8 Watters approves of
Klaproth’s determination of K’eeh-ch’a to be
Iskardu or Skardo. There are difficulties in connexion with the
view, but it has the advantage, to my mind very great, of bringing
the pilgrims across the Indus. The passage might be accomplished
with ease at this point of the river’s course, and therefore
is not particularly mentioned.

CHAPTER V

GREAT QUINQUENNIAL ASSEMBLY OF MONKS. RELICS OF BUDDHA.
PRODUCTIONS OF THE COUNTRY.

It happened that the king of the country was then holding the
pancha parishad, that is, in Chinese, the great quinquennial
assembly.1 When this is to be held, the king
requests the presence of the Sramans from all quarters (of his
kingdom). They come (as if) in clouds; and when they are all
assembled, their place of session is grandly decorated. Silken
streamers and canopies are hung out in, and water-lilies in gold
and silver are made and fixed up behind the places where (the chief
of them) are to sit. When clean mats have been spread, and they are
all seated, the king and his ministers present their offerings
according to rule and law. (The assembly takes place), in the
first, second, or third month, for the most part in the spring.

After the king has held the assembly, he further exhorts the
ministers to make other and special offerings. The doing of this
extends over one, two, three, five, or even seven days; and when
all is finished, he takes his own riding-horse, saddles, bridles,
and waits on him himself,2 while he makes the
noblest and most important minister of the kingdom mount him. Then,
taking fine white woollen cloth, all sorts of precious things, and
articles which the Sramans require, he distributes them among them,
uttering vows at the same time along with all his ministers; and
when this distribution has taken place, he again redeems (whatever
he wishes) from the monks.3

The country, being among the hills and cold, does not produce
the other cereals, and only the wheat gets ripe. After the monks
have received their annual (portion of this), the mornings suddenly
show the hoar-frost, and on this account the king always begs the
monks to make the wheat ripen4 before they receive
their portion. There is in the country a spitoon which belonged to
Buddha, made of stone, and in colour like his alms-bowl. There is
also a tooth of Buddha, for which the people have reared a tope,
connected with which there are more than a thousand monks and their
disciples,5 all students of the hinayana. To the
east of these hills the dress of the common people is of coarse
materials, as in our country of Ts’in, but here
also6 there were among them the differences of
fine woollen cloth and of serge or haircloth. The rules observed
by the Sramans are remarkable, and too numerous to be mentioned
in detail. The country is in the midst of the Onion range. As
you go forward from these mountains, the plants, trees, and
fruits are all different from those of the land of Han,
excepting only the bamboo, pomegranate,7 and
sugar-cane.

NOTES

1 See Eitel, p. 89. He
describes the assembly as “an ecclesiastical conference,
first instituted by king Asoka for general confession of sins and
inculcation of morality.”

2 The text of this
sentence is perplexing; and all translators, including myself, have
been puzzled by it.

3 See what we are told
of king Asoka’s grant of all the Jambudvipa to the monks in
chapter xxvii. There are several other instances of similar gifts
in the Mahavansa.

4 Watters calls
attention to this as showing that the monks of
K’eeh-ch’a had the credit of possessing
weather-controlling powers.

5 The text here has {.}
{.}, not {.} alone. I often found in monasteries boys and lads who
looked up to certain of the monks as their preceptors.

6 Compare what is said
in chapter ii of the dress of the people of Shen-shen.

7 Giles thinks the
fruit here was the guava, because the ordinary name for
“pomegranate” is preceded by gan {.}; but the
pomegranate was called at first Gan Shih-lau, as having been
introduced into China from Gan-seih by Chang-k’een, who is
referred to in chapter vii.

CHAPTER VI

ON TOWARDS NORTH INDIA. DARADA. IMAGE OF MAITREYA
BODHISATTVA.

From this (the travellers) went westwards towards North India,
and after being on the way for a month, they succeeded in getting
across and through the range of the Onion mountains. The snow rests
on them both winter and summer. There are also among them venomous
dragons, which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and
cause showers of snow and storms of sand and gravel. Not one in ten
thousand of those who encounter these dangers escapes with his
life. The people of the country call the range by the name of
“The Snow mountains.” When (the travellers) had got
through them, they were in North India, and immediately on entering
its borders, found themselves in a small kingdom called
T’o-leih,1 where also there were many monks,
all students of the hinayana.

In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan,2
who by his supernatural power3 took a clever
artificer up to the Tushita heaven, to see the height, complexion,
and appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva,4 and then
return and make an image of him in wood. First and last, this was
done three times, and then the image was completed, eighty cubits
in height, and eight cubits at the base from knee to knee of the
crossed legs. On fast-days it emits an effulgent light. The kings
of the (surrounding) countries vie with one another in presenting
offerings to it. Here it is,—to be seen now as of
old.5

NOTES

1 Eitel and others
identify this with Darada, the country of the ancient Dardae, the
region near Dardus; lat. 30d 11s N., lon. 73d 54s E. See E. H. p.
30. I am myself in more than doubt on the point. Cunningham
(“Ancient Geography of India,” p. 82) says “Darel
is a valley on the right or western bank of the Indus, now occupied
by Dardus or Dards, from whom it received its name.” But as I
read our narrative, Fa-hien is here on the eastern bank of the
Indus, and only crosses to the western bank as described in the
next chapter.

2 Lo-han, Arhat,
Arahat, are all designations of the perfected Arya, the disciple
who has passed the different stages of the Noble Path, or eightfold
excellent way, who has conquered all passions, and is not to be
reborn again. Arhatship implies possession of certain supernatural
powers, and is not to be succeeded by Buddhaship, but implies the
fact of the saint having already attained nirvana. Popularly, the
Chinese designate by this name the wider circle of Buddha’s
disciples, as well as the smaller ones of 500 and 18. No temple in
Canton is better worth a visit than that of the 500 Lo-han.

3 Riddhi-sakshatkriya,
“the power of supernatural footsteps,”=“a body
flexible at pleasure,” or unlimited power over the body. E.
H., p. 104.

4 Tushita is the fourth
Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are reborn before finally
appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in Tushita 4000 years, but
twenty-four hours there are equal to 400 years on earth. E. H., p.
152.

5 Maitreya (Spence
Hardy, Maitri), often styled Ajita, “the Invincible,”
was a Bodhisattva, the principal one, indeed, of Sakyamuni’s
retinue, but is not counted among the ordinary (historical)
disciples, nor is anything told of his antecedents. It was in the
Tushita heaven that Sakyamuni met him and appointed him as his
successor, to appear as Buddha after the lapse of 5000 years.
Maitreya is therefore the expected Messiah of the Buddhists,
residing at present in Tushita, and, according to the account of
him in Eitel (H., p. 70), “already controlling the
propagation of the Buddhistic faith.” The name means
“gentleness” or “kindness;” and this will
be the character of his dispensation.

6 The combination of
{.} {.} in the text of this concluding sentence, and so frequently
occurring throughout the narrative, has occasioned no little
dispute among previous translators. In the imperial thesaurus of
phraseology (P’ei-wan Yun-foo), under {.}, an example of it
is given from Chwang-tsze, and a note subjoined that {.} {.} is
equivalent to {.} {.}, “anciently and now.”

CHAPTER VII

CROSSING OF THE INDUS. WHEN BUDDHISM FIRST CROSSED THE RIVER
FOR THE EAST

The travellers went on to the south-west for fifteen days (at
the foot of the mountains, and) following the course of their
range. The way was difficult and rugged, (running along) a bank
exceedingly precipitous, which rose up there, a hill-like wall of
rock, 10,000 cubits from the base. When one approaches the edge of
it, his eyes become unsteady; and if he wished to go forward in the
same direction, there was no place on which he could place his
foot; and beneath where the waters of the river called the
Indus.1 In former times men had chiselled paths
along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to
the number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there was a
suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its
banks being there eighty paces apart.2 The (place
and arrangements) are to be found in the Records of the Nine
Interpreters,3 but neither Chang
K’een4 nor Kan Ying5 had
reached the spot.

The monks6 asked Fa-hien if it could be known
when the Law of Buddha first went to the east. He replied,
“When I asked the people of those countries about it, they
all said that it had been handed down by their fathers from of old
that, after the setting up of the image of Maitreya Bodhisattva,
there were Sramans of India who crossed this river, carrying with
them Sutras and Books of Discipline. Now the image was set up
rather more than 300 years after the nirvana7 of
Buddha, which may be referred to the reign of king P’ing of
the Chow dynasty.8 According to this account we
may say that the diffusion of our great doctrines (in the east)
began from (the setting up of) this image. If it had not been
through that Maitreya,9 the great spiritual
master10 (who is to be) the successor of the
Sakya, who could have caused the ‘Three Precious
Ones’11 to be proclaimed so far, and the
people of those border lands to know our Law? We know of a truth
that the opening of (the way for such) a mysterious propagation is
not the work of man; and so the dream of the emperor Ming of
Han12 had its proper cause.”

NOTES

1 The Sindhu. We saw in
a former note that the earliest name in China for India was
Shin-tuh. So, here, the river Indus is called by a name approaching
that in sound.

2 Both Beal and Watters
quote from Cunningham (Ladak, pp. 88, 89) the following description
of the course of the Indus in these parts, in striking accordance
with our author’s account:—“From Skardo to
Rongdo, and from Rongdo to Makpou-i-shang-rong, for upwards of 100
miles, the Indus sweeps sullen and dark through a mighty gorge in
the mountains, which for wild sublimity is perhaps unequalled.
Rongdo means the country of defiles. . . . Between these points the
Indus raves from side to side of the gloomy chasm, foaming and
chafing with ungovernable fury. Yet even in these inaccessible
places has daring and ingenious man triumphed over opposing nature.
The yawning abyss is spanned by frail rope bridges, and the narrow
ledges of rocks are connected by ladders to form a giddy pathway
overhanging the seething cauldron below.”

3 The Japanese edition
has a different reading here from the Chinese copies,—one
which Remusat (with true critical instinct) conjectured should take
the place of the more difficult text with which alone he was
acquainted. The “Nine Interpreters” would be a general
name for the official interpreters attached to the invading armies
of Han in their attempts to penetrate and subdue the regions of the
west. The phrase occurs in the memoir of Chang K’een,
referred to in the next note.

4 Chang K’een, a
minister of the emperor Woo of Han (B.C. 140-87), is celebrated as
the first Chinese who “pierced the void,” and
penetrated to “the regions of the west,” corresponding
very much to the present Turkestan. Through him, by B.C. 115, a
regular intercourse was established between China and the
thirty-six kingdoms or states of that quarter;—see
Mayers’ Chinese Reader’s Manual, p. 5. The memoir of
Chang K’een, translated by Mr. Wylie from the Books of the
first Han dynasty, appears in the Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, referred to already.

5 Less is known of Kan
Ying than of Chang K’een. Being sent in A.D. 88 by his patron
Pan Chao on an embassy to the Roman empire, he only got as far as
the Caspian sea, and returned to China. He extended, however, the
knowledge of his countrymen with regard to the western
regions;—see the memoir of Pan Chao in the Books of the
second Han, and Mayers’ Manual, pp. 167, 168.

6 Where and when?
Probably at his first resting-place after crossing the Indus.

7 This may refer to
Sakyamuni’s becoming Buddha on attaining to nirvana, or more
probably to his pari-nirvana and death.

8 As king
P’ing’s reign lasted from B.C. 750 to 719, this would
place the death of Buddha in the eleventh century B.C., whereas
recent inquirers place it between B.C. 480 and 470, a year or two,
or a few years, after that of Confucius, so that the two great
“Masters” of the east were really contemporaries. But
if Rhys Davids be correct, as I think he is, in fixing the date of
Buddha’s death within a few years of 412 B.C. (see Manual, p.
213), not to speak of Westergaard’s still lower date, then
the Buddha was very considerably the junior of Confucius.

9 This confirms the
words of Eitel, that Maitreya is already controlling the
propagation of the faith.

10 The Chinese
characters for this simply mean “the great scholar or
officer;” but see Eitel’s Handbook, p. 99, on the term
purusha.

12 Fa-hien thus
endorses the view that Buddhism was introduced into China in this
reign, A.D. 58-75. The emperor had his dream in A.D. 61.

CHAPTER VIII

WOO-CHANG, OR UDYANA. MONASTERIES, AND THEIR WAYS. TRACES OF
BUDDHA.

After crossing the river, (the travellers) immediately came to
the kingdom of Woo-chang,1 which is indeed (a
part) of North India. The people all use the language of Central
India, “Central India” being what we should call the
“Middle Kingdom.” The food and clothes of the common
people are the same as in that Central Kingdom. The Law of Buddha
is very (flourishing in Woo-chang). They call the places where the
monks stay (for a time) or reside permanently Sangharamas; and of
these there are in all 500, the monks being all students of the
hinayana. When stranger bhikshus2 arrive at one of
them, their wants are supplied for three days, after which they are
told to find a resting-place for themselves.

There is a tradition that when Buddha came to North India, he
came at once to this country, and that here he left a print of his
foot, which is long or short according to the ideas of the beholder
(on the subject). It exists, and the same thing is true about it,
at the present day. Here also are still to be seen the rock on
which he dried his clothes, and the place where he converted the
wicked dragon.3 The rock is fourteen cubits high,
and more than twenty broad, with one side of it smooth.

Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and Tao-ching went on ahead towards (the
place of) Buddha’s shadow in the country of
Nagara;4 but Fa-hien and the others remained in
Woo-chang, and kept the summer retreat.5 That
over, they descended south, and arrived in the country of
Soo-ho-to.6

NOTES

1 Udyana, meaning
“the Park;” just north of the Punjab, the country along
the Subhavastu, now called the Swat; noted for its forests,
flowers, and fruits (E. H., p. 153).

2 Bhikshu is the name
for a monk as “living by alms,” a mendicant. All
bhikshus call themselves Sramans. Sometimes the two names are used
together by our author.

3 Naga is the Sanskrit
name for the Chinese lung or dragon; often meaning a snake,
especially the boa. “Chinese Buddhists,” says Eitel, p.
79, “when speaking of nagas as boa spirits, always represent
them as enemies of mankind, but when viewing them as deities of
rivers, lakes, or oceans, they describe them as piously
inclined.” The dragon, however, is in China the symbol of the
Sovereign and Sage, a use of it unknown in Buddhism, according to
which all nagas need to be converted in order to obtain a higher
phase of being. The use of the character too {.}, as here, in the
sense of “to convert,” is entirely Buddhistic. The six
paramitas are the six virtues which carry men across {.} the great
sea of life and death, as the sphere of transmigration to nirvana.
With regard to the particular conversion here, Eitel (p. 11) says
the Naga’s name was Apatala, the guardian deity of the
Subhavastu river, and that he was converted by Sakyamuni shortly
before the death of the latter.

4 In Chinese
Na-k’eeh, an ancient kingdom and city on the southern bank of
the Cabul river, about thirty miles west of Jellalabad.

6 Soo-ho-to has not
been clearly identified. Beal says that later Buddhist writers
include it in Udyana. It must have been between the Indus and the
Swat. I suppose it was what we now call Swastene.

CHAPTER IX

SOO-HO-TO. LEGEND OF BUDDHA.

In that country also Buddhism1 is flourishing.
There is in it the place where Sakra,2 Ruler of
Devas, in a former age,3 tried the Bodhisattva, by
producing4 a hawk (in pursuit of a) dove, when
(the Bodhisattva) cut off a piece of his own flesh, and (with it)
ransomed the dove. After Buddha had attained to perfect
wisdom,5 and in travelling about with his
disciples (arrived at this spot), he informed them that this was
the place where he ransomed the dove with a piece of his own flesh.
In this way the people of the country became aware of the fact, and
on the spot reared a tope, adorned with layers6 of
gold and silver plates.

NOTES

1 Buddhism stands for
the two Chinese characters {.} {.}, “the Law of
Buddha,” and to that rendering of the phrase, which is of
frequent occurrence, I will in general adhere. Buddhism is not an
adequate rendering of them any more than Christianity would be of
{to euaggelion Xristou}. The Fa or Law is the equivalent of dharma
comprehending all in the first Basket of the Buddhist
teaching,—as Dr. Davids says (Hibbert Lectures, p. 44),
“its ethics and philosophy, and its system of
self-culture;” with the theory of karma, it seems to me,
especially underlying it. It has been pointed out
(Cunningham’s “Bhilsa Topes,” p. 102) that dharma
is the keystone of all king Priyadarsi or Asoka’s edicts. The
whole of them are dedicated to the attainment of one object,
“the advancement of dharma, or of the Law of Buddha.”
His native Chinese afforded no better character than {.} or Law, by
which our author could express concisely his idea of the Buddhistic
system, as “a law of life,” a directory or system of
Rules, by which men could attain to the consummation of their
being.

2 Sakra is a common
name for the Brahmanic Indra, adopted by Buddhism into the circle
of its own great adherents;—it has been said, “because
of his popularity.” He is generally styled, as here,
T’een Ti, “God or Ruler of Devas.” He is now the
representative of the secular power, the valiant protector of the
Buddhist body, but is looked upon as inferior to Sakyamuni, and
every Buddhist saint. He appears several times in Fa-hien’s
narrative. E. H., pp. 108 and 46.

3 The Chinese character
is {.}, “formerly,” and is often, as in the first
sentence of the narrative, simply equivalent to that adverb. At
other times it means, as here, “in a former age,” some
pre-existent state in the time of a former birth. The incident
related is “a Jataka story.”

4 It occurs at once to
the translator to render the characters {.} {.} by “changed
himself to.” Such is often their meaning in the sequel, but
their use in chapter xxiv may be considered as a crucial test of
the meaning which I have given them here.

6 This seems to be the
contribution of {.} (or {.}), to the force of the binomial {.} {.},
which is continually occurring.

CHAPTER X

GANDHARA. LEGENDS OF BUDDHA.

The travellers, going downwards from this towards the east, in
five days came to the country of Gandhara,1 the
place where Dharma-vivardhana,2 the son of
Asoka,3 ruled. When Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he
gave his eyes also for another man here;4 and at
the spot they have also reared a large tope, adorned with layers of
gold and silver plates. The people of the country were mostly
students of the hinayana.

NOTES

1 Eitel says “an
ancient kingdom, corresponding to the region about Dheri and
Banjour.” But see note 5.

2 Dharma-vivardhana is
the name in Sanskrit, represented by the Fa Yi {.} {.} of the
text.

3 Asoka is here
mentioned for the first time;—the Constantine of the Buddhist
society, and famous for the number of viharas and topes which he
erected. He was the grandson of Chandragupta (i.q. Sandracottus), a
rude adventurer, who at one time was a refugee in the camp of
Alexander the Great; and within about twenty years afterwards drove
the Greeks out of India, having defeated Seleucus, the Greek ruler
of the Indus provinces. He had by that time made himself king of
Magadha. His grandson was converted to Buddhism by the bold and
patient demeanour of an Arhat whom he had ordered to be buried
alive, and became a most zealous supporter of the new faith. Dr.
Rhys Davids (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi, p. xlvi) says that
“Asoka’s coronation can be fixed with absolute
certainty within a year or two either way of 267 B.C.”

4 This also is a Jataka
story; but Eitel thinks it may be a myth, constructed from the
story of the blinding of Dharma-vivardhana.

CHAPTER XI

TAKSHASILA. LEGENDS. THE FOUR GREAT TOPES.

Seven days’ journey from this to the east brought the
travellers to the kingdom of Takshasila,1 which
means “the severed head” in the language of China.
Here, when Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave away his head to a
man;2 and from this circumstance the kingdom got
its name.

Going on further for two days to the east, they came to the
place where the Bodhisattva threw down his body to feed a starving
tigress.2 In these two places also large topes
have been built, both adorned with layers of all the precious
substances. The kings, ministers, and peoples of the kingdoms
around vie with one another in making offerings at them. The trains
of those who come to scatter flowers and light lamps at them never
cease. The nations of those quarters all those (and the other two
mentioned before) “the four great topes.”

NOTES

1 See Julien’s
“Methode pour dechiffrer et transcrire les Nomes
Sanscrits,” p. 206. Eitel says, “The Taxila of the
Greeks, the region near Hoosun Abdaul in lat. 35d 48s N., lon. 72d
44s E. But this identification, I am satisfied, is wrong.
Cunningham, indeed, takes credit (“Ancient Geography of
India,” pp. 108, 109) for determining this to be the site of
Arrian’s Taxila,—in the upper Punjab, still existing in
the ruins of Shahdheri, between the Indus and Hydaspes (the modern
Jhelum). So far he may be correct; but the Takshasila of Fa-hien
was on the other, or western side of the Indus; and between the
river and Gandhara. It took him, indeed, seven days travelling
eastwards to reach it; but we do not know what stoppages he may
have made on the way. We must be wary in reckoning distances from
his specifications of days.

2 Two Jataka stories.
See the account of the latter in Spence Hardy’s “Manual
of Buddhism,” pp. 91, 92. It took place when Buddha had been
born as a Brahman in the village of Daliddi; and from the merit of
the act, he was next born in a devaloka.

CHAPTER XII

PURUSHAPURA, OR PESHAWUR. PROPHECY ABOUT KING KANISHKA AND HIS
TOPE. BUDDHA’S ALMS-BOWL. DEATH OF HWUY-YING.

Going southwards from Gandhara, (the travellers) in four days
arrived at the kingdom of Purushapura.1 Formerly,
when Buddha was travelling in this country with his disciples, he
said to Ananda,2 “After my
pari-nirvana,3 there will be a king named
Kanishka,4 who shall on this spot build a
tope.” This Kanishka was afterwards born into the world; and
(once), when he had gone forth to look about him, Sakra, Ruler of
Devas, wishing to excite the idea in his mind, assumed the
appearance of a little herd-boy, and was making a tope right in the
way (of the king), who asked what sort of thing he was making. The
boy said, “I am making a tope for Buddha.” The king
said, “Very good;” and immediately, right over the
boy’s tope, he (proceeded to) rear another, which was more
than four hundred cubits high, and adorned with layers of all the
precious substances. Of all the topes and temples which (the
travellers) saw in their journeyings, there was not one comparable
to this in solemn beauty and majestic grandeur. There is a current
saying that this is the finest tope in Jambudvipa.5 When the king’s tope was completed, the little
tope (of the boy) came out from its side on the south, rather more
than three cubits in height.

Buddha’s alms-bowl is in this country. Formerly, a king of
Yueh-she6 raised a large force and invaded this
country, wishing to carry the bowl away. Having subdued the
kingdom, as he and his captains were sincere believers in the Law
of Buddha, and wished to carry off the bowl, they proceeded to
present their offerings on a great scale. When they had done so to
the Three Precious Ones, he made a large elephant be grandly
caparisoned, and placed the bowl upon it. But the elephant knelt
down on the ground, and was unable to go forward. Again he caused a
four-wheeled waggon to be prepared in which the bowl was put to be
conveyed away. Eight elephants were then yoked to it, and dragged
it with their united strength; but neither were they able to go
forward. The king knew that the time for an association between
himself and the bowl had not yet arrived,7 and was
sad and deeply ashamed of himself. Forthwith he built a tope at the
place and a monastery, and left a guard to watch (the bowl), making
all sorts of contributions.

There may be there more than seven hundred monks. When it is
near midday, they bring out the bowl, and, along with the common
people,8 make their various offerings to it, after
which they take their midday meal. In the evening, at the time of
incense, they bring the bowl out again.9 It may
contain rather more than two pecks, and is of various colours,
black predominating, with the seams that show its fourfold
composition distinctly marked.10 Its thickness is
about the fifth of an inch, and it has a bright and glossy lustre.
When poor people throw into it a few flowers, it becomes
immediately full, while some very rich people, wishing to make
offering of many flowers, might not stop till they had thrown in
hundreds, thousands, and myriads of bushels, and yet would not be
able to fill it.11

Pao-yun and Sang-king here merely made their offerings to the
alms-bowl, and (then resolved to) go back. Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and
Tao-ching had gone on before the rest to Negara,12 to make their offerings at (the places of)
Buddha’s shadow, tooth, and the flat-bone of his skull.
(There) Hwuy-king fell ill, and Tao-ching remained to look after
him, while Hwuy-tah came alone to Purushapura, and saw the others,
and (then) he with Pao-yun and Sang-king took their way back to the
land of Ts’in. Hwuy-king13 came to his
end14 in the monastery of Buddha’s
alms-bowl, and on this Fa-hien went forward alone towards the place
of the flat-bone of Buddha’s skull.

NOTES

2 A first cousin of
Sakyamuni, and born at the moment when he attained to Buddhaship.
Under Buddha’s teaching, Ananda became an Arhat, and is
famous for his strong and accurate memory; and he played an
important part at the first council for the formation of the
Buddhist canon. The friendship between Sakyamuni and Ananda was
very close and tender; and it is impossible to read much of what
the dying Buddha said to him and of him, as related in the
Maha-pari-nirvana Sutra, without being moved almost to tears.
Ananda is to reappear on earth as Buddha in another Kalpa. See E.
H., p. 9, and the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi.

3 On his attaining to
nirvana, Sakyamuni became the Buddha, and had no longer to mourn
his being within the circle of transmigration, and could rejoice in
an absolute freedom from passion, and a perfect purity. Still he
continued to live on for forty-five years, till he attained to
pari-nirvana, and had done with all the life of sense and society,
and had no more exercise of thought. He died; but whether he
absolutely and entirely /ceased/ to be, in any sense of the word
/being/, it would be difficult to say. Probably he himself would
not and could not have spoken definitely on the point. So far as
our use of language is concerned, apart from any assured faith in
and hope of immortality, his pari-nirvana was his death.

4 Kanishka appeared,
and began to reign, early in our first century, about A.D. 10. He
was the last of three brothers, whose original seat was in
Yueh-she, immediately mentioned, or Tukhara. Converted by the
sudden appearance of a saint, he became a zealous Buddhist, and
patronised the system as liberally as Asoka had done. The finest
topes in the north-west of India are ascribed to him; he was
certainly a great man and a magnificent sovereign.

5 Jambudvipa is one of
the four great continents of the universe, representing the
inhabited world as fancied by the Buddhists, and so called because
it resembles in shape the leaves of the jambu tree. It is south of
mount Meru, and divided among four fabulous kings (E. H., p. 36).
It is often used, as here perhaps, merely as the Buddhist name for
India.

6 This king was
perhaps Kanishka himself, Fa-hien mixing up, in an inartistic way,
different legends about him. Eitel suggests that a relic of the old
name of the country may still exist in that of the Jats or Juts of
the present day. A more common name for it is Tukhara, and he
observes that the people were the Indo-Scythians of the Greeks, and
the Tartars of Chinese writers, who, driven on by the Huns (180
B.C.), conquered Transoxiana, destroyed the Bactrian kingdom (126
B.C.), and finally conquered the Punjab, Cashmere, and great part
of India, their greatest king being Kanishak (E. H., p. 152).

7 Watters, clearly
understanding the thought of the author in this sentence,
renders—“his destiny did not extend to a connexion with
the bowl;” but the term “destiny” suggests a
controlling or directing power without. The king thought that his
virtue in the past was not yet sufficient to give him possession of
the bowl.

8 The text is simply
“those in white clothes.” This may mean “the
laity,” or the “upasakas;” but it is better to
take the characters in their common Chinese acceptation, as meaning
“commoners,” “men who have no rank.” See in
Williams’ Dictionary under {.}.

9 I do not wonder that
Remusat should give for this—“et s’en retournent
apres.” But Fa-hien’s use of {.} in the sense of
“in the same way” is uniform throughout the
narrative.

10 Hardy’s M.
B., p. 183, says:—“The alms-bowl, given by Mahabrahma,
having vanished (about the time that Gotama became Buddha), each of
the four guardian deities brought him an alms-bowl of emerald, but
he did not accept them. They then brought four bowls made of stone,
of the colour of the mung fruit; and when each entreated that his
own bowl might be accepted, Buddha caused them to appear as if
formed into a single bowl, appearing at the upper rim as if placed
one within the other.” See the account more correctly given
in the “Buddhist Birth Stories,” p. 110.

13 This, no doubt,
should be Hwuy-ying. King was at this time ill in Nagara, and
indeed afterwards he dies in crossing the Little Snowy Mountains;
but all the texts make him die twice. The confounding of the two
names has been pointed out by Chinese critics.

14 “Came to his
end;” i.e., according to the text, “proved the
impermanence and uncertainty,” namely, of human life. See
Williams’ Dictionary under {.}. The phraseology is wholly
Buddhistic.

CHAPTER XIII

NAGARA. FESTIVAL OF BUDDHA’S SKULL-BONE. OTHER RELICS,
AND HIS SHADOW.

Going west for sixteen yojanas,1 he came to the
city He-lo2 in the borders of the country of
Nagara, where there is the flat-bone of Buddha’s skull,
deposited in a vihara3 adorned all over with
gold-leaf and the seven sacred substances. The king of the country,
revering and honouring the bone, and anxious lest it should be
stolen away, has selected eight individuals, representing the great
families in the kingdom, and committing to each a seal, with which
he should seal (its shrine) and guard (the relic). At early dawn
these eight men come, and after each has inspected his seal, they
open the door. This done, they wash their hands with scented water
and bring out the bone, which they place outside the vihara, on a
lofty platform, where it is supported on a round pedestal of the
seven precious substances, and covered with a bell of /lapis
lazuli/, both adorned with rows of pearls. Its colour is of a
yellowish white, and it forms an imperfect circle twelve inches
round,4 curving upwards to the centre. Every day,
after it has been brought forth, the keepers of the vihara ascend a
high gallery, where they beat great drums, blow conchs, and clash
their copper cymbals. When the king hears them, he goes to the
vihara, and makes his offerings of flowers and incense. When he has
done this, he (and his attendants) in order, one after another,
(raise the bone), place it (for a moment) on the top of their
heads,5 and then depart, going out by the door on
the west as they entered by that on the east. The king every
morning makes his offerings and performs his worship, and
afterwards gives audience on the business of his government. The
chiefs of the Vaisyas6 also make their offerings
before they attend to their family affairs. Every day it is so, and
there is no remissness in the observance of the custom. When all
the offerings are over, they replace the bone in the vihara, where
there is a vimoksha tope,7 of the seven precious
substances, and rather more than five cubits high, sometimes open,
sometimes shut, to contain it. In front of the door of the vihara,
there are parties who every morning sell flowers and
incense,8 and those who wish to make offerings buy
some of all kinds. The kings of various countries are also
constantly sending messengers with offerings. The vihara stands in
a square of thirty paces, and though heaven should shake and earth
be rent, this place would not move.

Going on, north from this, for a yojana, (Fa-hien) arrived at
the capital of Nagara, the place where the Bodhisattva once
purchased with money five stalks of flowers, as an offering to the
Dipankara Buddha.9 In the midst of the city there
is also the tope of Buddha’s tooth, where offerings are made
in the same way as to the flat-bone of his skull.

A yojana to the north-east of the city brought him to the mouth
of a valley, where there is Buddha’s pewter staff;10 and a vihara also has been built at which offerings
aremade. The staff is made of Gosirsha Chandana, and is quite
sixteen or seventeen cubits long. It is contained in a wooden tube,
and though a hundred or a thousand men ere to (try to) lift it,
they could not move it.

Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found
Buddha’s Sanghali,11 where also there is
reared a vihara, and offerings are made. It is a custom of the
country when there is a great drought, for the people to collect in
crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to it, and make offerings,
on which there is immediately a great rain from the sky.

South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a
great hill fronting the south-west; and here it was that Buddha
left his shadow. Looking at it from a distance of more than ten
paces, you seem to see Buddha’s real form, with his
complexion of gold, and his characteristic marks12 in their nicety clearly and brightly displayed. The
nearer you approach, however, the fainter it becomes, as if it were
only in your fancy. When the kings from the regions all around have
sent skilful artists to take a copy, none of them have been able to
do so. Among the people of the country there is a saying current
that “the thousand Buddhas13 must all leave
their shadows here.”

Rather more than four hundred paces west from the shadow, when
Buddha was at the spot, he shaved his hair and clipt his nails, and
proceeded, along with his disciples, to build a tope seventy or
eighty cubits high, to be a model for all future topes; and it is
still existing. By the side of it there is a monastery, with more
than seven hundred monks in it. At this place there are as many as
a thousand topes14 of Arhans and Pratyeka
Buddhas.15

NOTES

1 Now in India,
Fa-hien used the Indian measure of distance; but it is not possible
to determine exactly what its length then was. The estimates of it
are very different, and vary from four and a half or five miles to
seven, and sometimes more. See the subject exhaustively treated in
Davids’ “Ceylon Coins and Measures,” pp.
15-17.

2 The present Hilda,
west of Peshawur, and five miles south of Jellalabad.

3 “The
vihara,” says Hardy, “is the residence of a recluse or
priest;” and so Davids:—‘the clean little hut
where the mendicant lives.” Our author, however, does not use
the Indian name here, but the Chinese characters which express its
meaning—tsing shay, “a pure dwelling.” He uses
the term occasionally, and evidently, in this sense; more
frequently it occurs in his narrative in connexion with the
Buddhist relic worship; and at first I translated it by
“shrine” and “shrine-house;” but I came to
the conclusion, at last, to employ always the Indian name. The
first time I saw a shrine-house was, I think, in a monastery near
Foo-chow;—a small pyramidical structure, about ten feet high,
glittering as if with the precious substances, but all, it seemed
to me, of tinsel. It was in a large apartment of the building,
having many images in it. The monks said it was the most precious
thing in their possession, and that if they opened it, as I begged
them to do, there would be a convulsion that would destroy the
whole establishment. See E. H., p. 166. The name of the province of
Behar was given to it in consequence of its many viharas.

4 According to the
characters, “square, round, four inches.” Hsuan-chwang
says it was twelve inches round.

5 In Williams’
Dictionary, under {.}, the characters, used here, are employed in
the phrase for “to degrade an officer,” that is,
“to remove the token of his rank worn on the crown of his
head;” but to place a thing on the crown is a Buddhistic form
of religious homage.

6 The Vaisyas, or
bourgeois caste of Hindu society, are described here as
“resident scholars.”

7 See Eitel’s
Handbook under the name vimoksha, which is explained as “the
act of self-liberation,” and “the dwelling or state of
liberty.” There are eight acts of liberating one’s self
from all subjective and objective trammels, and as many states of
liberty (vimukti) resulting therefrom. They are eight degrees of
self-inanition, and apparently eight stages on the way to nirvana.
The tope in the text would be emblematic in some way of the general
idea of the mental progress conducting to the Buddhistic
consummation of existence.

8 This incense would
be in long “sticks,” small and large, such as are sold
to-day throughout China, as you enter the temples.

9 “The
illuminating Buddha,” the twenty-fourth predecessor of
Sakyamuni, and who, so long before, gave him the assurance that he
would by-and-by be Buddha. See Jataka Tales, p. 23.

10 The staff was, as
immediately appears, of Gosirsha Chandana, or “sandal-wood
from the Cow’s-head mountain,” a species of
copper-brown sandal-wood, said to be produced most abundantly on a
mountain of (the fabulous continent) Ullarakuru, north of mount
Meru, which resembles in shape the head of a cow (E. H., pp. 42,
43). It is called a “pewter staff” from having on it a
head and rings and pewter. See Watters, “China Review,”
viii, pp. 227, 228, and Williams’ Dictionary, under {.}.

11 Or Sanghati, the
double or composite robe, part of a monk’s attire, reaching
from the shoulders to the knees, and fastened round the waist (E.
H., p. 118).

12 These were the
“marks and beauties” on the person of a supreme Buddha.
The rishi Kala Devala saw them on the body of the infant Sakya
prince to the number of 328, those on the teeth, which had not yet
come out, being visible to his spirit-like eyes (M. B., pp. 148,
149).

14 The number may
appear too great. But see what is said on the size of topes in
chapter iii, note 4.

15 In Singhalese,
Pase Buddhas; called also Nidana Buddhas, and Pratyeka Jinas, and
explained by “individually intelligent,”
“completely intelligent,” “intelligent as regards
the nidanas.” This, says Eitel (pp. 96, 97), is “a
degree of saintship unknown to primitive Buddhism, denoting
automats in ascetic life who attain to Buddhaship
‘individually,’ that is, without a teacher, and without
being able to save others. As the ideal hermit, the Pratyeka Buddha
is compared with the rhinoceros khadga that lives lonely in the
wilderness. He is also called Nidana Buddha, as having mastered the
twelve nidanas (the twelve links in the everlasting chain of cause
and effect in the whole range of existence, the understanding of
which solves the riddle of life, revealing the inanity of all forms
of existence, and preparing the mind for nirvana). He is also
compared to a horse, which, crossing a river, almost buries its
body under the water, without, however, touching the bottom of the
river. Thus in crossing samsara he ‘suppresses the errors of
life and thought, and the effects of habit and passion, without
attaining to absolute perfection.’” Whether these
Buddhas were unknown, as Eitel says, to primitive Buddhism, may be
doubted. See Davids’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 146.

CHAPTER XIV

DEATH OF HWUY-KING IN THE LITTLE SNOWY MOUNTAINS. LO-E. POHNA.
CROSSING THE INDUS TO THE EAST.

Having stayed there till the third month of winter, Fa-hien and
the two others,1 proceeding southwards, crossed
the Little Snowy mountains.2 On them the snow lies
accumulated both winter and summer. On the north (side) of the
mountains, in the shade, they suddenly encountered a cold wind
which made them shiver and become unable to speak. Hwuy-king could
not go any farther. A white froth came from his mouth, and he said
to Fa-hien, “I cannot live any longer. Do you immediately go
away, that we do not all die here;” and with these words he
died.3 Fa-hien stroked the corpse, and cried out
piteously, “Our original plan has failed;—it is
fate.4 What can we do?” He then again
exerted himself, and they succeeded in crossing to the south of the
range, and arrived in the kingdom of Lo-e,5 where
there were nearly three thousand monks, students of both the
mahayana and hinayana. Here they stayed for the summer
retreat,6 and when that was over, they went on to
the south, and ten days’ journey brought them to the kingdom
of Poh-na,7 where there are also more than three
thousand monks, all students of the hinayana. Proceeding from this
place for three days, they again crossed the Indus, where the
country on each side was low and level.8

NOTES

4 A very natural
exclamation, but out of place and inconsistent from the lips of
Fa-hien. The Chinese character {.}, which he employed, may be
rendered rightly by “fate” or “destiny;”
but the fate is not unintelligent. The term implies a factor, or
fa-tor, and supposes the ordination of Heaven or God. A Confucian
idea for the moment overcame his Buddhism.

5 Lo-e, or Rohi, is a
name for Afghanistan; but only a portion of it can be here
intended.

7 No doubt the present
district of Bannu, in the Lieutenant-Governorship of the Punjab,
between 32d 10s and 33d 15s N. lat., and 70d 26s and 72d E. lon.
See Hunter’s Gazetteer of India, i, p. 393.

8 They had then
crossed the Indus before. They had done so, indeed, twice; first,
from north to south, at Skardo or east of it; and second, as
described in chapter vii.

CHAPTER XV

BHIDA. SYMPATHY OF MONKS WITH THE PILGRIMS.

After they had crossed the river, there was a country named
Pe-t’oo,1 where Buddhism was very
flourishing, and (the monks) studied both the mahayana and
hinayana. When they saw their fellow-disciples from Ts’in
passing along, they were moved with great pity and sympathy, and
expressed themselves thus: “How is it that these men from a
border-land should have learned to become monks,2
and come for the sake of our doctrines from such a distance in
search of the Law of Buddha?” They supplied them with what
they needed, and treated them in accordance with the rules of the
Law.

NOTES

2 “To come forth
from their families;” that is, to become celibates, and adopt
the tonsure.

CHAPTER XVI

ON TO MATHURA OR MUTTRA. CONDITION AND CUSTOMS OF CENTRAL
INDIA; OF THE MONKS, VIHARAS, AND MONASTERIES.

From this place they travelled south-east, passing by a
succession of very many monasteries, with a multitude of monks, who
might be counted by myriads. After passing all these places, they
came to a country named Ma-t’aou-lo.1 They
still followed the course of the P’oo-na2
river, on the banks of which, left and right, there were twenty
monasteries, which might contain three thousand monks; and (here)
the Law of Buddha was still more flourishing. Everywhere, from the
Sandy Desert, in all the countries of India, the kings had been
firm believers in that Law. When they make their offerings to a
community of monks, they take off their royal caps, and along with
their relatives and ministers, supply them with food with their own
hands. That done, (the king) has a carpet spread for himself on the
ground, and sits down in front of the chairman;—they dare not
presume to sit on couches in front of the community. The laws and
ways, according to which the kings presented their offerings when
Buddha was in the world, have been handed down to the present
day.

All south from this is named the Middle Kingdom.3 In it the cold and heat are finely tempered, and there
is neither hoarfrost nor snow. The people are numerous and happy;
they have not to register their households, or attend to any
magistrates and their rules; only those who cultivate the royal
land have to pay (a portion of) the grain from it. If they want to
go, they go; if they want to stay on, they stay. The king governs
without decapitation or (other) corporal punishments. Criminals are
simply fined, lightly or heavily, according to the circumstances
(of each case). Even in cases of repeated attempts at wicked
rebellion, they only have their right hands cut off. The
king’s body-guards and attendants all have salaries.
Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living
creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic.
The only exception is that of the Chandalas.4 That
is the name for those who are (held to be) wicked men, and live
apart from others. When they enter the gate of a city or a
market-place, they strike a piece of wood to make themselves known,
so that men know and avoid them, and do not come into contact with
them. In that country they do not keep pigs and fowls, and do not
sell live cattle; in the markets there are no butchers’ shops
and no dealers in intoxicating drink. In buying and selling
commodities they use cowries.5 Only the Chandalas
are fishermen and hunters, and sell flesh meat.

After Buddha attained to pari-nirvana,6 the
kings of the various countries and the heads of the
Vaisyas7 built viharas for the priests, and
endowed them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along
with the resident populations and their cattle, the grants being
engraved on plates of metal,8 so that
afterwards they were handed down from king to king, without any
daring to annul them, and they remain even to the present
time.

The regular business of the monks is to perform acts of
meritorious virtue, and to recite their Sutras and sit wrapt in
meditation. When stranger monks arrive (at any monastery), the old
residents meet and receive them, carry for them their clothes and
alms-bowl, give them water to wash their feet, oil with which to
anoint them, and the liquid food permitted out of the regular
hours.9 When (the stranger) has enjoyed a very
brief rest, they further ask the number of years that he has been a
monk, after which he receives a sleeping apartment with its
appurtenances, according to his regular order, and everything is
done for him which the rules prescribe.10

Where a community of monks resides, they erect topes to
Sariputtra,11 to Maha-maudgalyayana,12 and to Ananda,13 and also topes (in
honour) of the Abhidharma, the Vinaya, and the Sutras. A month
after the (annual season of) rest, the families which are looking
out for blessing stimulate one another14 to make
offerings to the monks, and send round to them the liquid food
which may be taken out of the ordinary hours. All the monks come
together in a great assembly, and preach the Law;15 after which offerings are presented at the tope of
Sariputtra, with all kinds of flowers and incense. All through the
night lamps are kept burning, and skilful musicians are employed to
perform.16

When Sariputtra was a great Brahman, he went to Buddha, and
begged (to be permitted) to quit his family (and become a monk).
The great Mugalan and the great Kasyapa17 also
did the same. The bhikshunis18 for the most part
make their offerings at the tope of Ananda, because it was he who
requested the World-honoured one to allow females to quit their
families (and become nuns). The Sramaneras19
mostly make their offerings to Rahula.20 The
professors of the Abhidharma make their offerings to it; those of
the Vinaya to it. Every year there is one such offering, and each
class has its own day for it. Students of the mahayana present
offerings to the Prajna-paramita,21 to
Manjusri,22 and to Kwan-she-yin.23 When the monks have done receiving their annual
tribute (from the harvests),24 the Heads of the
Vaisyas and all the Brahmans bring clothes and other such articles
as the monks require for use, and distribute among them. The monks,
having received them, also proceed to give portions to one another.
From the nirvana of Buddha,25 the forms of
ceremony, laws, and rules, practised by the sacred communities,
have been handed down from one generation to another without
interruption.

From the place where (the travellers) crossed the Indus to
Southern India, and on to the Southern Sea, a distance of forty or
fifty thousand le, all is level plain. There are no large hills
with streams (among them); there are simply the waters of the
rivers.

4 Eitel (pp. 145, 6)
says, “The name Chandalas is explained by
‘butchers,’ ‘wicked men,’ and those who
carry ‘the awful flag,’ to warn off their
betters;—the lowest and most despised caste of India, members
of which, however, when converted, were admitted even into the
ranks of the priesthood.”

5
“Cowries;” {.} {.}, not “shells and ivory,”
as one might suppose; but cowries alone, the second term entering
into the name from the marks inside the edge of the shell,
resembling “the teeth of fishes.”

7 See chapter xiii,
note 6. The order of the characters is different here, but with the
same meaning.

8 See the preparation
of such a deed of grant in a special case, as related in chapter
xxxix. No doubt in Fa-hien’s time, and long before and after
it, it was the custom to engrave such deeds on plates of metal.

9 “No monk can
eat solid food except between sunrise and noon,” and total
abstinence from intoxicating drinks is obligatory (Davids’
Manual, p. 163). Food eaten at any other part of the day is called
vikala, and forbidden; but a weary traveller might receive
unseasonable refreshment, consisting, as Watters has shown (Ch.
Rev. viii. 282), of honey, butter, treacle, and sesamum oil.

10 The expression
here is somewhat perplexing; but it occurs again in chapter
xxxviii; and the meaning is clear. See Watters, Ch. Rev. viii. 282,
3. The rules are given at length in the Sacred Books of the East,
vol. xx, p. 272 and foll., and p. 279 and foll.

11 Sariputtra (Singh.
Seriyut) was one of the principal disciples of Buddha, and indeed
the most learned and ingenious of them all, so that he obtained the
title of {.} {.}, “knowledge and wisdom.” He is also
called Buddha’s “right-hand attendant.” His name
is derived from that of his mother Sarika, the wife of Tishya, a
native of Nalanda. In Spence Hardy, he often appears under the name
of Upatissa (Upa-tishya), derived from his father. Several Sastras
are ascribed to him, and indeed the followers of the Abhidharma
look on him as their founder. He died before Sakyamuni; but is to
reappear as a future Buddha. Eitel, pp. 123, 124.

12 Mugalan, the
Singhalese name of this disciple, is more pronounceable. He also
was one of the principal disciples, called Buddha’s
“left-hand attendant.” He was distinguished for his
power of vision, and his magical powers. The name in the text is
derived from the former attribute, and it was by the latter that he
took up an artist to Tushita to get a view of Sakyamuni, and so
make a statue of him. (Compare the similar story in chap. vi.) He
went to hell, and released his mother. He also died before
Sakyamuni, and is to reappear as Buddha. Eitel, p. 65.

14 A passage rather
difficult to construe. The “families” would be those
more devout than their neighbours.

15 One rarely hears
this preaching in China. It struck me most as I once heard it at
Osaka in Japan. There was a pulpit in a large hall of the temple,
and the audience sat around on the matted floor. One priest took
the pulpit after another; and the hearers nodded their heads
occasionally, and indicated their sympathy now and then by an
audible “h’m,” which reminded me of
Carlyle’s description of meetings of “The
Ironsides” of Cromwell.

17 There was a
Kasyapa Buddha, anterior to Sakyamuni. But this Maha-kasyapa was a
Brahman of Magadha, who was converted by Buddha, and became one of
his disciples. He took the lead after Sakyamuni’s death,
convoked and directed the first synod, from which his title of
Arya-sthavira is derived. As the first compiler of the Canon, he is
considered the fountain of Chinese orthodoxy, and counted as the
first patriarch. He also is to be reborn as Buddha. Eitel, p.
64.

18 The bhikshunis are
the female monks or nuns, subject to the same rules as the
bhikshus, and also to special ordinances of restraint. See
Hardy’s E. M., chap. 17. See also Sacred Books of the East,
vol. xx, p. 321.

19 The Sramaneras are
the novices, male or female, who have vowed to observe the
Shikshapada, or ten commandments. Fa-hien was himself one of them
from his childhood. Having heard the Trisharana, or threefold
formula of Refuge,—“I take refuge in Buddha; the Law;
the Church,— the novice undertakes to observe the ten
precepts that forbid —(1) destroying life; (2) stealing; (3)
impurity; (4) lying; (5) intoxicating drinks; (6) eating after
midday; (7) dancing, singing, music, and stage-plays; (8) garlands,
scents, unguents, and ornaments; (9) high or broad couches; (10)
receiving gold or silver.” Davids’ Manual, p. 160;
Hardy’s E. M., pp. 23, 24.

20 The eldest son of
Sakyamuni by Yasodhara. Converted to Buddhism, he followed his
father as an attendant; and after Buddha’s death became the
founder of a philosophical realistic school (vaibhashika). He is
now revered as the patron saint of all novices, and is to be reborn
as the eldest son of every future Buddha. Eitel, p. 101. His mother
also is to be reborn as Buddha.

21 There are six
(sometimes increased to ten) paramitas, “means of passing to
nirvana:—Charity; morality; patience; energy; tranquil
contemplation; wisdom (prajna); made up to ten by use of the proper
means; science; pious vows; and force of purpose. But it is only
prajna which carries men across the samsara to the shores of
nirvana.” Eitel, p. 90.

22 According to Eitel
(pp. 71, 72), “A famous Bodhisattva, now specially worshipped
in Shan-se, whose antecedents are a hopeless jumble of history and
fable. Fa-hien found him here worshipped by followers of the
mahayana school; but Hsuan-chwang connects his worship with the
yogachara or tantra-magic school. The mahayana school regard him as
the apotheosis of perfect wisdom. His most common titles are
Mahamati, “Great wisdom,” and Kumara-raja, “King
of teaching, with a thousand arms and a hundred
alms-bowls.”

23 Kwan-she-yin and
the dogmas about him or her are as great a mystery as Manjusri. The
Chinese name is a mistranslation of the Sanskrit name
Avalokitesvra, “On-looking Sovereign,” or even
“On-looking Self-Existent,” and means “Regarding
or Looking on the sounds of the world,”=“Hearer of
Prayer.” Originally, and still in Thibet, Avalokitesvara had
only male attributes, but in China and Japan (Kwannon), this deity
(such popularly she is) is represented as a woman, “Kwan-yin,
the greatly gentle, with a thousand arms and a thousand
eyes;” and has her principal seat in the island of
P’oo-t’oo, on the China coast, which is a regular place
of pilgrimage. To the worshippers of whom Fa-hien speaks,
Kwan-she-yin would only be Avalokitesvara. How he was converted
into the “goddess of mercy,” and her worship took the
place which it now has in China, is a difficult inquiry, which
would take much time and space, and not be brought after all, so
far as I see, to a satisfactory conclusion. See Eitel’s
Handbook, pp. 18-20, and his Three Lectures on Buddhism (third
edition), pp. 124-131. I was talking on the subject once with an
intelligent Chinese gentleman, when he remarked, “Have you
not much the same thing in Europe in the worship of
Mary?”

25 This nirvana of
Buddha must be—not his death, but his attaining to
Buddhaship.

CHAPTER XVII

SANKASYA. BUDDHA’S ASCENT TO AND DESCENT FROM THE
TRAYASTRIMSAS HEAVEN, AND OTHER LEGENDS.

From this they proceeded south-east for eighteen yojanas, and
found themselves in a kingdom called Sankasya,1 at
the place where Buddha came down, after ascending to the
Trayastrimsas heaven,2 and there preaching for
three months his Law for the benefit of his mother.3 Buddha had gone up to this heaven by his supernatural
power,4 without letting his disciples know; but
seven days before the completion (of the three months) he laid
aside his invisibility,4 and Anuruddha,5 with his heavenly eyes,5 saw the
World-honoured one, and immediately said to the honoured one, the
great Mugalan, “Do you go and salute the World-honoured
one.” Mugalan forthwith went, and with head and face did
homage at (Buddha’s) feet. They then saluted and questioned
each other, and when this was over, Buddha said to Mugalan,
“Seven days after this I will go down to Jambudvipa;”
and thereupon Mugalan returned. At this time the great kings of
eight countries with their ministers and people, not having seen
Buddha for a long time, were all thirstily looking up for him, and
had collected in clouds in this kingdom to wait for the
World-honoured one.

Then the bhikshuni Utpala6 thought in her
heart, “To-day the kings, with their ministers and people,
will all be meeting (and welcoming) Buddha. I am (but) a woman; how
shall I succeed in being the first to see him?”7 Buddha immediately, by his spirit-like power, changed
her into the appearance of a holy Chakravartti8
king, and she was the foremost of all in doing reverence to
him.

As Buddha descended from his position aloft in the Trayastrimsas
heaven, when he was coming down, there were made to appear three
flights of precious steps. Buddha was on the middle flight, the
steps of which were composed of the seven precious substances. The
king of Brahma-loka9 also made a flight of silver
steps appear on the right side, (where he was seen) attending with
a white chowry in his hand. Sakra, Ruler of Devas, made (a flight
of) steps of purple gold on the left side, (where he was seen)
attending and holding an umbrella of the seven precious substances.
An innumerable multitude of the devas followed Buddha in his
descent. When he was come down, the three flights all disappeared
in the ground, excepting seven steps, which continued to be
visible. Afterwards king Asoka, wishing to know where their ends
rested, sent men to dig and see. They went down to the yellow
springs10 without reaching the bottom of the
steps, and from this the king received an increase to his reverence
and faith, and built a vihara over the steps, with a standing
image, sixteen cubits in height, right over the middle flight.
Behind the vihara he erected a stone pillar, about fifty cubits
high,11 with a lion on the top of it.12 Let into the pillar, on each of its four
sides,13 there is an image of Buddha, inside
and out14 shining and transparent, and pure as
it were of /lapis lazuli/. Some teachers of another
doctrine15 once disputed with the Sramanas
about (the right to) this as a place of residence, and the
latter were having the worst of the argument, when they took an
oath on both sides on the condition that, if the place did
indeed belong to the Sramanas, there should be some marvellous
attestation of it. When these words had been spoken, the lion on
the top gave a great roar, thus giving the proof; on which their
opponents were frightened, bowed to the decision, and
withdrew.

Through Buddha having for three months partaken of the food of
heaven, his body emitted a heavenly fragrance, unlike that of an
ordinary man. He went immediately and bathed; and afterwards, at
the spot where he did so, a bathing-house was built, which is still
existing. At the place where the bhikshuni Utpala was the first to
do reverence to Buddha, a tope has now been built.

At the places where Buddha, when he was in the world, cut his
hair and nails, topes are erected; and where the three
Buddhas16 that preceded Sakyamuni Buddha and he
himself sat; where they walked,17 and where
images of their persons were made. At all these places topes were
made, and are still existing. At the place where Sakra, Ruler of
the Devas, and the king of the Brahma-loka followed Buddha down
(from the Trayastrimsas heaven) they have also raised a tope.

At this place the monks and nuns may be a thousand, who all
receive their food from the common store, and pursue their studies,
some of the mahayana and some of the hinayana. Where they live,
there is a white-eared dragon, which acts the part of danapati to
the community of these monks, causing abundant harvests in the
country, and the enriching rains to come in season, without the
occurrence of any calamities, so that the monks enjoy their repose
and ease. In gratitude for its kindness, they have made for it a
dragon-house, with a carpet for it to sit on, and appointed for it
a diet of blessing, which they present for its nourishment. Every
day they set apart three of their number to go to its house, and
eat there. Whenever the summer retreat is ended, the dragon
straightway changes its form, and appears as a small
snake,18 with white spots at the side of its
ears. As soon as the monks recognise it, they fill a copper
vessel with cream, into which they put the creature, and then
carry it round from the one who has the highest seat (at their
tables) to him who has the lowest, when it appears as if
saluting them. When it has been taken round, immediately it
disappeared; and every year it thus comes forth once. The
country is very productive, and the people are prosperous, and
happy beyond comparison. When people of other countries come to
it, they are exceedingly attentive to them all, and supply them
with what they need.

Fifty yojanas north-west from the monastery there is another,
called “The Great Heap.”19 Great Heap
was the name of a wicked demon, who was converted by Buddha, and
men subsequently at this place reared a vihara. When it was being
made over to an Arhat by pouring water on his hands,20 some drops fell on the ground. They are still on the
spot, and however they may be brushed away and removed, they
continue to be visible, and cannot be made to disappear.

At this place there is also a tope to Buddha, where a good
spirit constantly keeps (all about it) swept and watered, without
any labour of man being required. A king of corrupt views once
said, “Since you are able to do this, I will lead a multitude
of troops and reside there till the dirt and filth has increased
and accumulated, and (see) whether you can cleanse it away or
not.” The spirit thereupon raised a great wind, which blew
(the filth away), and made the place pure.

At this place there are a hundred small topes, at which a man
may keep counting a whole day without being able to know (their
exact number). If he be firmly bent on knowing it, he will place a
man by the side of each tope. When this is done, proceeding to
count the number of men, whether they be many or few, he will not
get to know (the number).21

There is a monastery, containing perhaps 600 or 700 monks, in
which there is a place where a Pratyeka Buddha used to take his
food. The nirvana ground (where he was burned22
after death) is as large as a carriage wheel; and while grass grows
all around, on this spot there is none. The ground also where he
dried his clothes produces no grass, but the impression of them,
where they lay on it, continues to the present day.

NOTES

1 The name is still
remaining in Samkassam, a village forty-five miles northwest of
Canouge, lat. 27d 3s N., lon. 79d 50s E.

2 The heaven of Indra
or Sakya, meaning “the heaven of thirty-three classes,”
a name which has been explained both historically and
mythologically. “The description of it,” says Eitel, p.
148, “tallies in all respects with the Svarga of Brahmanic
mythology. It is situated between the four peaks of the Meru, and
consists of thirty-two cities of devas, eight one each of the four
corners of the mountain. Indra’s capital of Bellevue is in
the centre. There he is enthroned, with a thousand heads and a
thousand eyes, and four arms grasping the vajra, with his wife and
119,000 concubines. There he receives the monthly reports of the
four Maharajas, concerning the progress of good and evil in the
world,” &c. &c.

3 Buddha’s
mother, Maya and Mahamaya, the /mater immaculata/ of the Buddhists,
died seven days after his birth. Eitel says, “Reborn in
Tushita, she was visited there by her son and converted.” The
Tushita heaven was a more likely place to find her than the
Trayastrimsas; but was the former a part of the latter? Hardy gives
a long account of Buddha’s visit to the Trayastrimsas (M. B.,
pp. 298-302), which he calls Tawutisa, and speaks of his mother
(Matru) in it, who had now become a deva by the changing of her
sex.

4 Compare the account
of the Arhat’s conveyance of the artist to the Tushita heaven
in chap. v. The first expression here is more comprehensive.

5 Anuruddha was a
first cousin of Sakyamuni, being the son of his uncle Amritodana.
He is often mentioned in the account we have of Buddha’s last
moments. His special gift was the divyachakshus or “heavenly
eye,” the first of the six abhijnas or “supernatural
talents,” the faculty of comprehending in one instantaneous
view, or by intuition, all beings in all worlds. “He could
see,” says Hardy, M. B., p. 232, “all things in 100,000
sakvalas as plainly as a mustard seed held in the hand.”

6 Eitel gives the name
Utpala with the same Chinese phonetisation as in the text, but not
as the name of any bhikshuni. The Sanskrit word, however, is
explained by “blue lotus flowers;” and Hsuan-chwang
calls her the nun “Lotus-flower colour ({.} {.}
{.});”—the same as Hardy’s Upulwan and
Uppalawarna.

7 Perhaps we should
read here “to see Buddha,” and then ascribe the
transformation to the nun herself. It depends on the punctuation
which view we adopt; and in the structure of the passage, there is
nothing to indicate that the stop should be made before or after
“Buddha.” And the one view is as reasonable, or rather
as unreasonable, as the other.

8 “A holy king
who turns the wheel;” that is, the military conqueror and
monarch of the whole or part of a universe. “The
symbol,” says Eitel (p. 142) “of such a king is the
chakra or wheel, for when he ascends the throne, a chakra falls
from heaven, indicating by its material (gold, silver, copper, or
iron) the extent and character of his reign. The office, however,
of the highest Chakravartti, who hurls his wheel among his enemies,
is inferior to the peaceful mission of a Buddha, who meekly turns
the wheel of the Law, and conquers every universe by his
teaching.”

9 This was Brahma, the
first person of the Brahmanical Trimurti, adopted by Buddhism, but
placed in an inferior position, and surpassed by every Buddhist
saint who attains to bodhi.

10 A common name for
the earth below, where, on digging, water is found.

11 The height is
given as thirty chow, the chow being the distance from the elbow to
the finger-tip, which is variously estimated.

12 A note of Mr. Beal
says on this:—“General Cunningham, who visited the spot
(1862), found a pillar, evidently of the age of Asoka, with a
well-carved elephant on the top, which, however, was minus trunk
and tail. He supposes this to be the pillar seen by Fa-hien, who
mistook the top of it for a lion. It is possible such a mistake may
have been made, as in the account of one of the pillars at
Sravasti, Fa-hien says an ox formed the capital, whilst
Hsuan-chwang calls it an elephant (P. 19, Arch. Survey).”

13 That is, in niches
on the sides. The pillar or column must have been square.

15 Has always been
translated “heretical teachers;” but I eschew the terms
/heresy/ and /heretical/. The parties would not be Buddhists of any
creed or school, but Brahmans or of some other false doctrine, as
Fa-hien deemed it. The Chinese term means “outside” or
“foreign;”—in Pali, anna-titthiya,=“those
belonging to another school.”

16 These three
predecessors of Sakyamuni were the three Buddhas of the present or
Maha-bhadra Kalpa, of which he was the fourth, and Maitreya is to
be the fifth and last. They were: (1) Krakuchanda (Pali,
Kakusanda), “he who readily solves all doubts;” a scion
of the Kasyapa family. Human life reached in his time 40,000 years,
and so many persons were converted by him. (2) Kanakamuni (Pali,
Konagamana), “body radiant with the colour of pure
gold;” of the same family. Human life reached in his time
30,000 years, and so many persons were converted by him. (3)
Kasyapa (Pali, Kassapa), “swallower of light.” Human
life reached in his time 20,000 years, and so many persons were
converted by him. See Eitel, under the several names; Hardy’s
M. B., pp. 95-97; and Davids’ “Buddhist Birth
Stories,” p. 51.

17 That is, walked in
meditation. Such places are called Chankramana (Pali, Chankama);
promenades or corridors connected with a monastery, made sometimes
with costly stones, for the purpose of peripatetic meditation. The
“sitting” would be not because of weariness or for
rest, but for meditation. E. H., p. 144.

18 The character in
my Corean copy is {.}, which must be a mistake for the {.} of the
Chinese editions. Otherwise, the meaning would be “a small
medusa.”

19 The reading here
seems to me a great improvement on that of the Chinese editions,
which means “Fire Limit.” Buddha, it is said, {.}
converted this demon, which Chinese character Beal rendered at
first by “in one of his incarnations;” and in his
revised version he has “himself.” The difference
between Fa-hien’s usage of {.} and {.} throughout his
narrative is quite marked. {.} always refers to the doings of
Sakyamuni; {.}, “formerly,” is often used of him and
others in the sense of “in a former age or birth.”

20 See Hardy, M. B.,
p. 194:—“As a token of the giving over of the garden,
the king poured water upon the hands of Buddha; and from this time
it became one of the principal residences of the sage.”

21 This would seem to
be absurd; but the writer evidently intended to convey the idea
that there was something mysterious about the number of the
topes.

22 This seems to be
the meaning. The bodies of the monks are all burned. Hardy’s
E. M., pp. 322-324.

CHAPTER XVIII

KANYAKUBJA, OR CANOUGE. BUDDHA’S PREACHING.

Fa-hien stayed at the Dragon vihara till after the summer
retreat,1 and then, travelling to the south-east
for seven yojanas, he arrived at the city of Kanyakubja,2 lying along the Ganges.3 There are two
monasteries in it, the inmates of which are students of the
hinayana. At a distance from the city of six or seven le, on the
west, on the northern bank of the Ganges, is a place where Buddha
preached the Law to his disciples. It has been handed down that his
subjects of discourse were such as “The bitterness and vanity
(of life) as impermanent and uncertain,” and that “The
body is as a bubble or foam on the water.” At this spot a
tope was erected, and still exists.

Having crossed the Ganges, and gone south for three yojanas,
(the travellers) arrived at a village named A-le,4
containing places where Buddha preached the Law, where he sat, and
where he walked, at all of which topes have been built.

NOTES

2 Canouge, the
latitude and longitude of which have been given in a previous note.
The Sanskrit name means “the city of humpbacked
maidens;” with reference to the legend of the hundred
daughters of king Brahma-datta, who were made deformed by the curse
of the rishi Maha-vriksha, whose overtures they had refused. E. H.,
p. 51.

3 Ganga, explained by
“Blessed water,” and “Come from heaven to
earth.”

4 This village (the
Chinese editions read “forest”) has hardly been clearly
identified.

CHAPTER XIX

SHA-CHE. LEGEND OF BUDDHA’S DANTA-KASHTHA.

Going on from this to the south-east for three yojanas, they
came to the great kingdom of Sha-che.1 As you go
out of the city of Sha-che by the southern gate, on the east of the
road (is the place) where Buddha, after he had chewed his willow
branch,2 stuck it in the ground, when it forthwith
grew up seven cubits, (at which height it remained) neither
increasing nor diminishing. The Brahmans with their contrary
doctrines3 became angry and jealous. Sometimes
they cut the tree down, sometimes they plucked it up, and cast it
to a distance, but it grew again on the same spot as at first. Here
also is the place where the four Buddhas walked and sat, and at
which a tope was built that is still existing.

NOTES

1 Sha-che should
probably be Sha-khe, making Cunningham’s identification of
the name with the present Saket still more likely. The change of
{.} into {.} is slight; and, indeed, the Khang-hsi dictionary
thinks the two characters should be but one and the same.

2 This was, no doubt,
what was called the danta-kashtha, or “dental wood,”
mostly a bit of the /ficus Indicus/ or banyan tree, which the monk
chews every morning to cleanse his teeth, and for the purpose of
health generally. The Chinese, not having the banyan, have used, or
at least Fa-hien used, Yang ({.}, the general name for the willow)
instead of it.

3 Are two classes of
opponents, or only one, intended here, so that we should read
“all the unbelievers and Brahmans,” or “heretics
and Brahmans?” I think the Brahmans were also “the
unbelievers” and “heretics,” having {.} {.},
views and ways outside of, and opposed to,
Buddha’s.

CHAPTER XX

KOSALA AND SRAVASTI. THE JETAVANA VIHARA AND OTHER MEMORIALS
AND LEGENDS OF BUDDHA. SYMPATHY OF THE MONKS WITH THE
PILGRIMS.

Going on from this to the south, for eight yojanas, (the
travellers) came to the city of Sravasti1 in the
kingdom of Kosala,2 in which the inhabitants were
few and far between, amounting in all (only) to a few more than two
hundred families; the city where king Prasenajit3
ruled, and the place of the old vihara of Maha-prajapti;4 of the well and walls of (the house of) the (Vaisya)
head Sudatta;5 and where the
Angulimalya6 became an Arhat, and his body was
(afterwards) burned on his attaining to pari-nirvana. At all
these places topes were subsequently erected, which are still
existing in the city. The Brahmans, with their contrary
doctrine, became full of hatred and envy in their hearts, and
wished to destroy them, but there came from the heavens such a
storm of crashing thunder and flashing lightning that they were
not able in the end to effect their purpose.

As you go out from the city by the south gate, and 1,200 paces
from it, the (Vaisya) head Sudatta built a vihara, facing the
south; and when the door was open, on each side of it there was a
stone pillar, with the figure of a wheel on the top of that on the
left, and the figure of an ox on the top of that on the right. On
the left and right of the building the ponds of water clear and
pure, the thickets of trees always luxuriant, and the numerous
flowers of various hues, constituted a lovely scene, the whole
forming what is called the Jetavana vihara.7

When Buddha went up to the Trayastrimsas heaven,8 and preached the Law for the benefit of his mother,
(after he had been absent for) ninety days, Prasenajit, longing to
see him, caused an image of him to be carved in Gosirsha Chandana
wood,9 and put in the place where he usually sat.
When Buddha on his return entered the vihara, Buddha said to it,
“Return to your seat. After I have attained to pari-nirvana,
you will serve as a pattern to the four classes of my
disciples,”10 and on this the image
returned to its seat. This was the very first of all the images (of
Buddha), and that which men subsequently copied. Buddha then
removed, and dwelt in a small vihara on the south side (of the
other), a different place from that containing the image, and
twenty paces distant from it.

The Jetavana vihara was originally of seven storeys. The kings
and people of the countries around vied with one another in their
offerings, hanging up about it silken streamers and canopies,
scattering flowers, burning incense, and lighting lamps, so as to
make the night as bright as the day. This they did day after day
without ceasing. (It happened that) a rat, carrying in its mouth
the wick of a lamp, set one of the streamers or canopies on fire,
which caught the vihara, and the seven storeys were all consumed.
The kings, with their officers and people, were all very sad and
distressed, supposing that the sandal-wood image had been burned;
but lo! after four or five days, when the door of a small vihara on
the east was opened, there was immediately seen the original image.
They were all greatly rejoiced, and co-operated in restoring the
vihara. When they had succeeded in completing two storeys, they
removed the image back to its former place.

When Fa-hien and Tao-ching first arrived at the Jetavana
monastery, and thought how the World-honoured one had formerly
resided there for twenty-five years, painful reflections arose in
their minds. Born in a border-land, along with their like-minded
friends, they had travelled through so many kingdoms; some of those
friends had returned (to their own land), and some had (died),
proving the impermanence and uncertainty of life; and to-day they
saw the place where Buddha had lived now unoccupied by him. They
were melancholy through their pain of heart, and the crowd of monks
came out, and asked them from what kingdom they were come.
“We are come,” they replied, “from the land of
Han.” “Strange,” said the monks with a sigh,
“that men of a border country should be able to come here in
search of our Law!” Then they said to one another,
“During all the time that we, preceptors and
monks,11 have succeeded to one another, we
have never seen men of Han, followers of our system, arrive
here.”

Four le to the north-west of the vihara there is a grove called
“The Getting of Eyes.” Formerly there were five hundred
blind men, who lived here in order that they might be near the
vihara.12 Buddha preached his Law to them, and
they all got back their eyesight. Full of joy, they stuck their
staves in the earth, and with their heads and faces on the ground,
did reverence. The staves immediately began to grow, and they grew
to be great. People made much of them, and no one dared to cut them
down, so that they came to form a grove. It was in this way that it
got its name, and most of the Jetavana monks, after they had taken
their midday meal, went to the grove, and sat there in
meditation.

Six or seven le north-east from the Jetavana, mother
Vaisakha13 built another vihara, to which she
invited Buddha and his monks, and which is still existing.

To each of the great residences for monks at the Jetavana vihara
there were two gates, one facing the east and the other facing the
north. The park (containing the whole) was the space of ground
which the (Vaisya) head Sudatta purchased by covering it with gold
coins. The vihara was exactly in the centre. Here Buddha lived for
a longer time than at any other place, preaching his Law and
converting men. At the places where he walked and sat they also
(subsequently) reared topes, each having its particular name; and
here was the place where Sundari14 murdered a
person and then falsely charged Buddha (with the crime). Outside
the east gate of the Jetavana, at a distance of seventy paces to
the north, on the west of the road, Buddha held a discussion with
the (advocates of the) ninety-six schemes of erroneous doctrine,
when the king and his great officers, the householders, and people
were all assembled in crowds to hear it. Then a woman belonging to
one of the erroneous systems, by name Chanchamana,15 prompted by the envious hatred in her heart, and
having put on (extra) clothes in front of her person, so as to give
her the appearance of being with child, falsely accused Buddha
before all the assembly of having acted unlawfully (towards her).
On this, Sakra, Ruler of Devas, changed himself and some devas into
white mice, which bit through the strings about her waist; and when
this was done, the (extra) clothes which she wore dropt down on the
ground. The earth at the same time was rent, and she went (down)
alive into hell.16 (This) also is the place where
Devadatta,17 trying with empoisoned claws to
injure Buddha, went down alive into hell. Men subsequently set up
marks to distinguish where both these events took place.

Further, at the place where the discussion took place, they
reared a vihara rather more than sixty cubits high, having in it an
image of Buddha in a sitting posture. On the east of the road there
was a devalaya18 of (one of) the contrary
systems, called “The Shadow Covered,” right opposite
the vihara on the place of discussion, with (only) the road between
them, and also rather more than sixty cubits high. The reason why
it was called “The Shadow Covered” was this:—
When the sun was in the west, the shadow of the vihara of the
World-honoured one fell on the devalaya of a contrary system; but
when the sun was in the east, the shadow of that devalaya was
diverted to the north, and never fell on the vihara of Buddha. The
mal-believers regularly employed men to watch their devalaya, to
sweep and water (all about it), to burn incense, light the lamps,
and present offerings; but in the morning the lamps were found to
have been suddenly removed, and in the vihara of Buddha. The
Brahmans were indignant, and said, “Those Sramanas take out
lamps and use them for their own service of Buddha, but we will not
stop our service for you!”19 On that night
the Brahmans themselves kept watch, when they saw the deva spirits
which they served take the lamps and go three times round the
vihara of Buddha and present offerings. After this ministration to
Buddha they suddenly disappeared. The Brahmans thereupon knowing
how great was the spiritual power of Buddha, forthwith left their
families, and became monks.20 It has been handed
down, that, near the time when these things occurred, around the
Jetavana vihara there were ninety-eight monasteries, in all of
which there were monks residing, excepting only in one place which
was vacant. In this Middle Kingdom21 there are
ninety-six21 sorts of views, erroneous and
different from our system, all of which recognise this world and
the future world22 (and the connexion between
them). Each had its multitude of followers, and they all beg their
food: only they do not carry the alms-bowl. They also, moreover,
seek (to acquire) the blessing (of good deeds) on unfrequented
ways, setting up on the road-side houses of charity, where rooms,
couches, beds, and food and drink are supplied to travellers, and
also to monks, coming and going as guests, the only difference
being in the time (for which those parties remain).

There are also companies of the followers of Devadatta still
existing. They regularly make offerings to the three previous
Buddhas, but not to Sakyamuni Buddha.

Four le south-east from the city of Sravasti, a tope has been
erected at the place where the World-honoured one encountered king
Virudhaha,23 when he wished to attack the kingdom
of Shay-e,23 and took his stand before him at the
side of the road.24

NOTES

1 In Singhalese,
Sewet; here evidently the capital of Kosala. It is placed by
Cunningham (Archaeological Survey) on the south bank of the Rapti,
about fifty-eight miles north of Ayodya or Oude. There are still
the ruins of a great town, the name being Sahet Mahat. It was in
this town, or in its neighbourhood, that Sakyamuni spent many years
of his life after he became Buddha.

2 There were two
Indian kingdoms of this name, a southern and a northern. This was
the northern, a part of the present Oudh.

3 In Singhalese,
Pase-nadi, meaning “leader of the victorious army.” He
was one of the earliest converts and chief patrons of Sakyamuni.
Eitel calls him (p. 95) one of the originators of Buddhist
idolatory, because of the statue which is mentioned in this
chapter. See Hardy’s M. B., pp. 283, 284, et al.

4 Explained by
“Path of Love,” and “Lord of Life.”
Prajapati was aunt and nurse of Sakyamuni, the first woman admitted
to the monkhood, and the first superior of the first Buddhistic
convent. She is yet to become a Buddha.

5 Sudatta, meaning
“almsgiver,” was the original name of Anatha-pindika
(or Pindada), a wealthy householder, or Vaisya head, of Sravasti,
famous for his liberality (Hardy, Anepidu). Of his old house, only
the well and walls remained at the time of Fa-hien’s visit to
Sravasti.

6 The Angulimalya were
a sect or set of Sivaitic fanatics, who made assassination a
religious act. The one of them here mentioned had joined them by
the force of circumstances. Being converted by Buddha, he became a
monk; but when it is said in the text that he “got the
Tao,” or doctrine, I think that expression implies more than
his conversion, and is equivalent to his becoming an Arhat. His
name in Pali is Angulimala. That he did become an Arhat is clear
from his autobiographical poem in the “Songs of the
Theras.”

7 Eitel (p. 37)
says:—“A noted vihara in the suburbs of Sravasti,
erected in a park which Anatha-pindika bought of prince Jeta, the
son of Prasenajit. Sakyamuni made this place his favourite
residence for many years. Most of the Sutras (authentic and
supposititious) date from this spot.”

10 Arya, meaning
“honourable,” “venerable,” is a title given
only to those who have mastered the four spiritual
truths:—(1) that “misery” is a necessary
condition of all sentient existence; this is duhkha: (2) that the
“accumulation” of misery is caused by the passions;
this is samudaya: (3) that the “extinction” of passion
is possible; this is nirodha: and (4) that the “path”
leads to the extinction of passion; which is marga. According to
their attainment of these truths, the Aryas, or followers of
Buddha, are distinguished into four classes,— Srotapannas,
Sakridagamins, Anagamins, and Arhats. E. H., p. 14.

11 This is the first
time that Fa-hien employs the name Ho-shang {.} {.}, which is now
popularly used in China for all Buddhist monks without distinction
of rank or office. It is the representative of the Sanskrit term
Upadhyaya, “explained,” says Eitel (p. 155) by “a
self-taught teacher,” or by “he who knows what is
sinful and what is not sinful,” with the note, “In
India the vernacular of this term is {.} {.} (? munshee [?
Bronze]); in Kustana and Kashgar they say {.} {.} (hwa-shay); and
from the latter term are derived the Chinese synonyms, {.} {.}
(ho-shay) and {.} {.} (ho-shang).” The Indian term was
originally a designation for those who teach only a part of the
Vedas, the Vedangas. Adopted by Buddhists of Central Asia, it was
made to signify the priests of the older ritual, in distinction
from the Lamas. In China it has been used first as a synonym for
{.} {.}, monks engaged in popular teaching (teachers of the Law),
in distinction from {.} {.}, disciplinists, and {.} {.},
contemplative philosophers (meditationists); then it was used to
designate the abbots of monasteries. But it is now popularly
applied to all Buddhist monks. In the text there seems to be
implied some distinction between the “teachers” and the
“ho-shang;”—probably, the Pali Akariya and
Upagghaya; see Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii, Vinaya Texts,
pp. 178, 179.

12 It might be added,
“as depending on it,” in order to bring out the full
meaning of the {.} in the text. If I recollect aright, the help of
the police had to be called in at Hong Kong in its early years, to
keep the approaches to the Cathedral free from the number of
beggars, who squatted down there during service, hoping that the
hearers would come out with softened hearts, and disposed to be
charitable. I found the popular tutelary temples in Peking and
other places, and the path up Mount T’ai in Shan-lung
similarly frequented.

13 The wife of
Anatha-pindika, and who became “mother superior” of
many nunneries. See her history in M. B., pp. 220-227. I am
surprised it does not end with the statement that she is to become
a Buddha.

14 See E. H., p. 136.
Hsuan-chwang does not give the name of this murderer; see in
Julien’s “Vie et Voyages de Hiouen-thsang,” p.
125,— “a heretical Brahman killed a woman and
calumniated Buddha.” See also the fuller account in
Beal’s “Records of Western Countries,” pp. 7, 8,
where the murder is committed by several Brahmacharins. In this
passage Beal makes Sundari to be the name of the murdered person (a
harlot). But the text cannot be so construed.

15 Eitel (p. 144)
calls her Chancha; in Singhalese, Chinchi. See the story about her,
M. B., pp. 275-277.

16
“Earth’s prison,” or “one of Earth’s
prisons.” It was the Avichi naraka to which she went, the
last of the eight hot prisons, where the culprits die, and are born
again in uninterrupted succession (such being the meaning of
Avichi), though not without hope of final redemption. E. H. p.
21.

17 Devadatta was
brother of Ananda, and a near relative therefore of Sakyamuni. He
was the deadly enemy, however, of the latter. He had become so in
an earlier state of existence, and the hatred continued in every
successive birth, through which they reappeared in the world. See
the accounts of him, and of his various devices against Buddha, and
his own destruction at the last, in M. B., pp. 315-321, 326-330;
and still better, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx, Vinaya
Texts, pp. 233-265. For the particular attempt referred to in the
text, see “The Life of the Buddha,” p. 107. When he was
engulphed, and the flames were around him, he cried out to Buddha
to save him, and we are told that he is expected yet to appear as a
Buddha under the name of Devaraja, in a universe called
Deva-soppana. E. H., p. 39.

18 “A devalaya
({.} {.} or {.} {.}), a place in which a deva is
worshipped,—a general name for all Brahmanical temples”
(Eitel, p. 30). We read in the Khang-hsi dictionary under {.}, that
when Kasyapa Matanga came to the Western Regions, with his Classics
or Sutras, he was lodged in the Court of State-Ceremonial, and that
afterwards there was built for him “The Court of the
White-horse” ({.} {.} {.}), and in consequence the name of
Sze {.} came to be given to all Buddhistic temples. Fa-hien,
however, applies this term only to Brahmanical temples.

19 Their speech was
somewhat unconnected, but natural enough in the circumstances.
Compare the whole account with the narrative in I Samuel v. about
the Ark and Dagon, that “twice-battered god of
Palestine.”

20 “Entered the
doctrine or path.” Three stages in the Buddhistic life are
indicated by Fa-hien:—“entering it,” as here, by
becoming monks ({.} {.}); “getting it,” by becoming
Arhats ({.} {.}); and “completing it,” by becoming
Buddha ({.} {.}).

21 It is not quite
clear whether the author had in mind here Central India as a whole,
which I think he had, or only Kosala, the part of it where he then
was. In the older teaching, there were only thirty-two sects, but
there may have been three subdivisions of each. See Rhys
Davids’ “Buddhism,” pp. 98, 99.

22 This mention of
“the future world” is an important difference between
the Corean and Chinese texts. The want of it in the latter has been
a stumbling-block in the way of all previous translators. Remusat
says in a note that “the heretics limited themselves to speak
of the duties of man in his actual life without connecting it by
the notion that the metempsychosis with the anterior periods of
existence through which he had passed.” But this is just the
opposite of what Fa-hien’s meaning was, according to our
Corean text. The notion of “the metempsychosis” was
just that in which all the ninety-six erroneous systems agreed
among themselves and with Buddhism. If he had wished to say what
the French sinologue thinks he does say, moreover, he would
probably have written {.} {.} {.} {.} {.}. Let me add, however,
that the connexion which Buddhism holds between the past world
(including the present) and the future is not that of a
metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, for it does not appear
to admit any separate existence of the soul. Adhering to its own
phraseology of “the wheel,” I would call its doctrine
that of “The Transrotation of Births.” See Rhys
Davids’ third Hibbert Lecture.

23 Or, more according
to the phonetisation of the text, Vaidurya. He was king of Kosala,
the son and successor of Prasenajit, and the destroyer of
Kapilavastu, the city of the Sakya family. His hostility to the
Sakyas is sufficiently established, and it may be considered as
certain that the name Shay-e, which, according to Julien’s
“Methode,” p. 89, may be read Chia-e, is the same as
Kia-e ({.} {.}), one of the phonetisations of Kapilavastu, as given
by Eitel.

24 This would be the
interview in the “Life of the Buddha” in
Trubner’s Oriental Series, p. 116, when Virudhaha on his
march found Buddha under an old sakotato tree. It afforded him no
shade; but he told the king that the thought of the danger of
“his relatives and kindred made it shady.” The king was
moved to sympathy for the time, and went back to Sravasti; but the
destruction of Kapilavastu was only postponed for a short space,
and Buddha himself acknowledged it to be inevitable in the
connexion of cause and effect.

CHAPTER XXI

THE THREE PREDECESSORS OF SAKYAMUNI IN THE BUDDHASHIP.

Fifty le to the west of the city bring (the traveller) to a town
named Too-wei,1 the birthplace of Kasyapa
Buddha.1 At the place where he and his father
met,2 and at that where he attained to
pari-nirvana, topes were erected. Over the entire relic of the
whole body of him, the Kasyapa Tathagata,3 a great
tope was also erected.

Going on south-east from the city of Sravasti for twelve
yojanas, (the travellers) came to a town named
Na-pei-kea,4 the birthplace of Krakuchanda
Buddha. At the place where he and his father met, and at that
where he attained to pari-nirvana, topes were erected. Going
north from here less than a yojana, they came to a town which
had been the birthplace of Kanakamuni Buddha. At the place where
he and his father met, and where he attained to pari-nirvana,
topes were erected.

NOTES

1 Identified, as Beal
says, by Cunningham with Tadwa, a village nine miles to the west of
Sahara-mahat. The birthplace of Kasyapa Buddha is generally thought
to have been Benares. According to a calculation of Remusat, from
his birth to A.D. 1832 there were 1,992,859 years!

2 It seems to be
necessary to have a meeting between every Buddha and his father.
One at least is ascribed to Sakyamuni and his father (real or
supposed) Suddhodana.

3 This is the highest
epithet given to every supreme Buddha; in Chinese {.} {.}, meaning,
as Eitel, p. 147 says, “/Sic profectus sum/.” It is
equivalent to “Rightful Buddha, the true successor in the
Supreme Buddha Line.” Hardy concludes his account of the
Kasyapa Buddha (M. B., p. 97) with the following
sentence:—“After his body was burnt, the bones still
remained in their usual position, presenting the appearance of a
perfect skeleton; and the whole of the inhabitants of Jambudvipa,
assembling together, erected a dagoba over his relics one yojana in
height!”

4 Na-pei-kea or
Nabhiga is not mentioned elsewhere. Eitel says this Buddha was born
at the city of Gan-ho ({.} {.} {.}) and Hardy gives his birthplace
as Mekhala. It may be possible, by means of Sanskrit, to reconcile
these statements.

CHAPTER XXII

KAPILAVASTU. ITS DESOLATION. LEGENDS OF BUDDHA’S BIRTH,
AND OTHER INCIDENTS IN CONNEXION WITH IT.

Less than a yojana to the east from this brought them to the
city of Kapilavastu;1 but in it there was neither
king nor people. All was mound and desolation. Of inhabitants there
were only some monks and a score or two of families of the common
people. At the spot where stood the old palace of king
Suddhodana2 there have been made images of the
prince (his eldest son) and his mother;3 and at
the places where that son appeared mounted on a white elephant when
he entered his mother’s womb,4 and where he
turned his carriage round on seeing the sick man after he had gone
out of the city by the eastern gate,5 topes have
been erected. The places (were also pointed out)6
where (the rishi) A-e7 inspected the marks (of
Buddhaship on the body) of the heir-apparent (when an infant);
where, when he was in company with Nanda and others, on the
elephant being struck down and drawn to one side, he tossed it
away;8 where he shot an arrow to the south-east,
and it went a distance of thirty le, then entering the ground and
making a spring to come forth, which men subsequently fashioned
into a well from which travellers might drink;9
where, after he had attained to Wisdom, Buddha returned and saw the
king, his father;10 where five hundred Sakyas
quitted their families and did reverence to Upali11 while the earth shook and moved in six different ways;
where Buddha preached his Law to the devas, and the four deva kings
and others kept the four doors (of the hall), so that (even) the
king, his father, could not enter;12 where Buddha
sat under a nyagrodha tree, which is still standing,13 with his face to the east, and (his aunt)
Maja-prajapati presented him with a Sanghali;14
and (where) king Vaidurya slew the seed of Sakya, and they all in
dying became Srotapannas.15 A tope was erected at
this last place, which is still existing.

Several le north-east from the city was the king’s field,
where the heir-apparent sat under a tree, and looked at the
ploughers.16

Fifty le east from the city was a garden, named
Lumbini,17 where the queen entered the pond
and bathed. Having come forth from the pond on the northern
bank, after (walking) twenty paces, she lifted up her hand, laid
hold of a branch of a tree, and, with her face to the east, gave
birth to the heir-apparent.18 When he fell to
the ground, he (immediately) walked seven paces. Two
dragon-kings (appeared) and washed his body. At the place where
they did so, there was immediately formed a well, and from it,
as well as from the above pond, where (the queen)
bathed,19 the monks (even) now constantly take
the water, and drink it.

There are four places of regular and fixed occurrence (in the
history of) all Buddhas:—first, the place where they attained
to perfect Wisdom (and became Buddha); second, the place where they
turned the wheel of the Law;20 third, the place
where they preached the Law, discoursed of righteousness, and
discomfited (the advocates of) erroneous doctrines; and fourth, the
place where they came down, after going up to the Trayatrimsas
heaven to preach the Law for the benefit of their mothers. Other
places in connexion with them became remarkable, according to the
manifestations which were made at them at particular times.

The country of Kapilavastu is a great scene of empty desolation.
The inhabitants are few and far between. On the roads people have
to be on their guard against white elephants21
and lions, and should not travel incautiously.

NOTES

1 Kapilavastu,
“the city of beautiful virtue,” was the birthplace of
Sakyamuni, but was destroyed, as intimated in the notes on last
chapter, during his lifetime. It was situated a short distance
north-west of the present Goruckpoor, lat. 26d 46s N., lon. 83d 19s
E. Davids says (Manual, p. 25), “It was on the banks of the
river Rohini, the modern Kohana, about 100 miles north-west of the
city of Benares.”

2 The father, or
supposed father, of Sakyamuni. He is here called “the king
white and pure” ({.} {.} {.}). A more common appellation is
“the king of pure rice” ({.} {.} {.});” but the
character {.}, or “rice,” must be a mistake for {.},
“Brahman,” and the appellation= “Pure Brahman
king.”

3 The “eldest
son,” or “prince” was Sakyamuni, and his mother
had no other son. For “his mother,” see chap. xvii,
note 3. She was a daughter of Anjana or Anusakya, king of the
neighbouring country of Koli, and Yasodhara, an aunt of Suddhodana.
There appear to have been various intermarriages between the royal
houses of Kapila and Koli.

4 In “The Life
of the Buddha,” p. 15, we read that “Buddha was now in
the Tushita heaven, and knowing that his time was come (the time
for his last rebirth in the course of which he would become
Buddha), he made the necessary examinations; and having decided
that Maha-maya was the right mother, in the midnight watch he
entered her womb under the appearance of an elephant.” See M.
B., pp. 140-143, and, still better, Rhys Davids’ “Birth
Stories,” pp. 58-63.

5 In Hardy’s M.
B., pp. 154, 155, we read, “As the prince (Siddhartha, the
first name given to Sakyamuni; see Eitel, under Sarvarthasiddha)
was one day passing along, he saw a deva under the appearance of a
leper, full of sores, with a body like a water-vessel, and legs
like the pestle for pounding rice; and when he learned from his
charioteer what it was that he saw, be became agitated, and
returned at once to the palace.” See also Rhys Davids’
“Buddhism,” p. 29.

6 This is an addition
of my own, instead of “There are also topes erected at the
following spots,” of former translators. Fa-hien does not say
that there were memorial topes at all these places.

7 Asita; see Eitel, p.
15. He is called in Pali Kala Devala, and had been a minister of
Suddhodana’s father.

8 In “The Life
of Buddha” we read that the Lichchhavis of Vaisali had sent
to the young prince a very fine elephant; but when it was near
Kapilavastu, Devadatta, out of envy, killed it with a blow of his
fist. Nanda (not Ananda, but a half-brother of Siddhartha), coming
that way, saw the carcase lying on the road, and pulled it on one
side; but the Bodhisattva, seeing it there, took it by the tail,
and tossed it over seven fences and ditches, when the force of its
fall made a great ditch. I suspect that the characters in the
column have been disarranged, and that we should read {.} {.} {.}
{.}, {.} {.}, {.} {.}. Buddha, that is Siddhartha, was at this time
only ten years old.

9 The young Sakyas
were shooting when the prince thus surpassed them all. He was then
seventeen.

10 This was not the
night when he finally fled from Kapilavastu, and as he was leaving
the palace, perceiving his sleeping father, and said,
“Father, though I love thee, yet a fear possesses me, and I
may not stay;”—The Life of the Buddha, p. 25. Most
probably it was that related in M. B., pp. 199-204. See
“Buddhist Birth Stories,” pp. 120-127.

11 They did this, I
suppose, to show their humility, for Upali was only a Sudra by
birth, and had been a barber; so from the first did Buddhism assert
its superiority to the conditions of rank and caste. Upali was
distinguished by his knowledge of the rules of discipline, and
praised on that account by Buddha. He was one of the three leaders
of the first synod, and the principal compiler of the original
Vinaya books.

13 Meaning, as
explained in Chinese, “a tree without knots;” the
/ficus Indica/. See Rhys Davids’ note, Manual, p. 39, where
he says that a branch of one of these trees was taken from Buddha
Gaya to Anuradhapura in Ceylon in the middle of the third century
B.C, and is still growing there, the oldest historical tree in the
world.

14 See chap. xiii,
note 11. I have not met with the account of this presentation. See
the long account of Prajapati in M. B., pp. 306-315.

15 See chap. xx, note
10. The Srotapannas are the first class of saints, who are not to
be reborn in a lower sphere, but attain to nirvana after having
been reborn seven times consecutively as men or devas. The Chinese
editions state there were “1000” of the Sakya seed. The
general account is that they were 500, all maidens, who refused to
take their place in king Vaidurya’s harem, and were in
consequence taken to a pond, and had their hands and feet cut off.
There Buddha came to them, had their wounds dressed, and preached
to them the Law. They died in the faith, and were reborn in the
region of the four Great Kings. Thence they came back and visited
Buddha at Jetavana in the night, and there they obtained the reward
of Srotapanna. “The Life of the Buddha,” p. 121.

16 See the account of
this event in M. B., p. 150. The account of it reminds me of the
ploughing by the sovereign, which has been an institution in China
from the earliest times. But there we have no magic and no
extravagance.

18 See the accounts
of this event in M. B., pp. 145, 146; “The Life of the
Buddha,” pp. 15, 16; and “Buddhist Birth
Stories,” p. 66.

19 There is
difficulty in construing the text of this last statement. Mr. Beal
had, no doubt inadvertently, omitted it in his first translation.
In his revised version he gives for it, I cannot say happily,
“As well as at the pool, the water of which came down from
above for washing (the child).”

20 See chap. xvii,
note 8. See also Davids’ Manual, p. 45. The latter says, that
“to turn the wheel of the Law” means “to set
rolling the royal chariot wheel of a universal empire of truth and
righteousness;” but he admits that this is more grandiloquent
than the phraseology was in the ears of Buddhists. I prefer the
words quoted from Eitel in the note referred to. “They
turned” is probably equivalent to “They began to
turn.”

21 Fa-hien does not
say that he himself saw any of these white elephants, nor does he
speak of the lions as of any particular colour. We shall find
by-and-by, in a note further on, that, to make them appear more
terrible, they are spoken of as “black.”

CHAPTER XXIII

RAMA, AND ITS TOPE.

East from Buddha’s birthplace, and at a distance of five
yojanas, there is a kingdom called Rama.1 The king
of this country, having obtained one portion of the relics of
Buddha’s body,2 returned with it and built
over it a tope, named the Rama tope. By the side of it there was a
pool, and in the pool a dragon, which constantly kept watch over
(the tope), and presented offerings to it day and night. When king
Asoka came forth into the world, he wished to destroy the eight
topes (over the relics), and to build (instead of them) 84,000
topes.3 After he had thrown down the seven
(others), he wished next to destroy this tope. But then the dragon
showed itself, took the king into its palace;4 and
when he had seen all the things provided for offerings, it said to
him, “If you are able with your offerings to exceed these,
you can destroy the tope, and take it all away. I will not contend
with you.” The king, however, knew that such appliances for
offerings were not to be had anywhere in the world, and thereupon
returned (without carrying out his purpose).

(Afterwards), the ground all about became overgrown with
vegetation, and there was nobody to sprinkle and sweep (about the
tope); but a herd of elephants came regularly, which brought water
with their trunks to water the ground, and various kinds of flowers
and incense, which they presented at the tope. (Once) there came
from one of the kingdoms a devotee5 to worship at
the tope. When he encountered the elephants he was greatly alarmed,
and screened himself among the trees; but when he saw them go
through with the offerings in the most proper manner, the thought
filled him with great sadness—that there should be no
monastery here, (the inmates of which) might serve the tope, but
the elephants have to do the watering and sweeping. Forthwith he
gave up the great prohibitions (by which he was bound),6 and resumed the status of a Sramanera.7
With his own hands he cleared away the grass and trees, put the
place in good order, and made it pure and clean. By the power of
his exhortations, he prevailed on the king of the country to form a
residence for monks; and when that was done, he became head of the
monastery. At the present day there are monks residing in it. This
event is of recent occurrence; but in all the succession from that
time till now, there has always been a Sramanera head of the
establishment.

CHAPTER XXIV

WHERE BUDDHA FINALLY RENOUNCED THE WORLD, AND WHERE HE
DIED.

East from here four yojanas, there is the place where the
heir-apparent sent back Chandaka, with his white horse;1 and there also a tope was erected.

Four yojanas to the east from this, (the travellers) came to the
Charcoal tope,2 where there is also a
monastery.

Going on twelve yojanas, still to the east, they came to the
city of Kusanagara,3 on the north of which,
between two trees,4 on the bank of the
Nairanjana5 river, is the place where the
World-honoured one, with his head to the north, attained to
pari-nirvana (and died). There also are the places where
Subhadra,6 the last (of his converts), attained to
Wisdom (and became an Arhat); where in his coffin of gold they made
offerings to the World-honoured one for seven days,7 where the Vajrapani laid aside his golden
club,8 and where the eight kings9 divided the relics (of the burnt body):—at all
these places were built topes and monasteries, all of which are
now existing.

In the city the inhabitants are few and far between, comprising
only the families belonging to the (different) societies of
monks.

Going from this to the south-east for twelve yojanas, they came
to the place where the Lichchhavis10 wished to
follow Buddha to (the place of) his pari-nirvana, and where, when
he would not listen to them and they kept cleaving to him,
unwilling to go away, he made to appear a large and deep ditch
which they could not cross over, and gave them his alms-bowl, as a
pledge of his regard, (thus) sending them back to their families.
There a stone pillar was erected with an account of this event
engraved upon it.

NOTES

1 This was on the
night when Sakyamuni finally left his palace and family to fulfil
the course to which he felt that he was called. Chandaka, in Pali
Channa, was the prince’s charioteer, and in sympathy with
him. So also was the white horse Kanthaka (Kanthakanam Asvaraja),
which neighed his delight till the devas heard him. See M. B., pp.
158-161, and Davids’ Manual, pp. 32, 33. According to
“Buddhist Birth Stories,” p. 87, the noble horse never
returned to the city, but died of grief at being left by his
master, to be reborn immediately in the Trayastrimsas heaven as the
deva Kanthaka!

2 Beal and Giles call
this the “Ashes” tope. I also would have preferred to
call it so; but the Chinese character is {.}, not {.}. Remusat has
“la tour des charbons.” It was over the place of
Buddha’s cremation.

3 In Pali Kusinara. It
got its name from the Kusa grass (the /poa cynosuroides/); and its
ruins are still extant, near Kusiah, 180 N.W. from Patna;
“about,” says Davids, “120 miles N.N.E. of
Benares, and 80 miles due east of Kapilavastu.”

4 The Sala tree, the
/Shorea robusta/, which yields the famous teak wood.

5 Confounded,
according to Eitel, even by Hsuan-chwang, with the Hiranyavati,
which flows past the city on the south.

6 A Brahman of
Benares, said to have been 120 years old, who came to learn from
Buddha the very night he died. Ananda would have repulsed him; but
Buddha ordered him to be introduced; and then putting aside the
ingenious but unimportant question which he propounded, preached to
him the Law. The Brahman was converted and attained at once to
Arhatship. Eitel says that he attained to nirvana a few moments
before Sakyamuni; but see the full account of him and his
conversion in “Buddhist Suttas,” p. 103-110.

7 Thus treating the
dead Buddha as if he had been a Chakravartti king. Hardy’s M.
B., p. 347, says:—“For the place of cremation, the
princes (of Kusinara) offered their own coronation-hall, which was
decorated with the utmost magnificence, and the body was deposited
in a golden sarcophagus.” See the account of a cremation
which Fa-hien witnessed in Ceylon, chap. xxxix.

8 The name Vajrapani
is explained as “he who holds in his hand the diamond club
(or pestle=sceptre),” which is one of the many names of Indra
or Sakra. He therefore, that great protector of Buddhism, would
seem to be intended here; but the difficulty with me is that
neither in Hardy nor Rockhill, nor any other writer, have I met
with any manifestation of himself made by Indra on this occasion.
The princes of Kusanagara were called mallas, “strong or
mighty heroes;” so also were those of Pava and Vaisali; and a
question arises whether the language may not refer to some story
which Fa-hien had heard,— something which they did on this
great occasion. Vajrapani is also explained as meaning “the
diamond mighty hero;” but the epithet of
“diamond” is not so applicable to them as to Indra. The
clause may hereafter obtain more elucidation.

9 Of Kusanagara, Pava,
Vaisali, and other kingdoms. Kings, princes, brahmans,—each
wanted the whole relic; but they agreed to an eightfold division at
the suggestion of the brahman Drona.

10 These
“strong heroes” were the chiefs of Vaisali, a kingdom
and city, with an oligarchical constitution. They embraced Buddhism
early, and were noted for their peculiar attachment to Buddha. The
second synod was held at Vaisali, as related in the next chapter.
The ruins of the city still exist at Bassahar, north of Patna, the
same, I suppose, as Besarh, twenty miles north of Hajipur. See
Beal’s Revised Version, p. lii.

CHAPTER XXV

VAISALI. THE TOPE CALLED “WEAPONS LAID DOWN.” THE
COUNCIL OF VAISALI.

East from this city ten yojanas, (the travellers) came to the
kingdom of Vaisali. North of the city so named is a large forest,
having in it the double-galleried vihara1 where
Buddha dwelt, and the tope over half the body of Ananda.2 Inside the city the woman Ambapali3
built a vihara in honour of Buddha, which is now standing as it was
at first. Three le south of the city, on the west of the road, (is
the) garden (which) the same Ambapali presented to Buddha, in which
he might reside. When Buddha was about to attain to his
pari-nirvana, as he was quitting the city by the west gate, he
turned round, and, beholding the city on his right, said to them,
“Here I have taken my last walk.”4 Men
subsequently built a tope at this spot.

Three le north-west of the city there is a tope called,
“Bows and weapons laid down.” The reason why it got
that name was this:—The inferior wife of a king, whose
country lay along the river Ganges, brought forth from her womb a
ball of flesh. The superior wife, jealous of the other, said,
“You have brought forth a thing of evil omen,” and
immediately it was put into a box of wood and thrown into the
river. Farther down the stream another king was walking and looking
about, when he saw the wooden box (floating) in the water. (He had
it brought to him), opened it, and found a thousand little boys,
upright and complete, and each one different from the others. He
took them and had them brought up. They grew tall and large, and
very daring, and strong, crushing all opposition in every
expedition which they undertook. By and by they attacked the
kingdom of their real father, who became in consequence greatly
distressed and sad. His inferior wife asked what it was that made
him so, and he replied, “That king has a thousand sons,
daring and strong beyond compare, and he wishes with them to attack
my kingdom; this is what makes me sad.” The wife said,
“You need not be sad and sorrowful. Only make a high gallery
on the wall of the city on the east; and when the thieves come, I
shall be able to make them retire.” The king did as she said;
and when the enemies came, she said to them from the tower,
“You are my sons; why are you acting so unnaturally and
rebelliously?” They replied, “If you do not believe
me,” she said, “look, all of you, towards me, and open
your mouths.” She then pressed her breasts with her two
hands, and each sent forth 500 jets of milk, which fell into the
mouths of the thousand sons. The thieves (thus) knew that she was
their mother, and laid down their bows and weapons.5 The two kings, the fathers, thereupon fell into
reflection, and both got to be Pratyeka Buddhas.6
The tope of the two Pratyeka Buddhas is still existing.

In a subsequent age, when the World-honoured one had attained to
perfect Wisdom (and become Buddha), he said to is disciples,
“This is the place where I in a former age laid down my bow
and weapons.”7 It was thus that subsequently
men got to know (the fact), and raised the tope on this spot, which
in this way received its name. The thousand little boys were the
thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra-kalpa.8

It was by the side of the “Weapons-laid-down” tope
that Buddha, having given up the idea of living longer, said to
Ananda, “In three months from this I will attain to
pavi-nirvana;” and king Mara9 had so
fascinated and stupefied Ananda, that he was not able to ask Buddha
to remain longer in this world.

Three or four le east from this place there is a tope
(commemorating the following occurrence):—A hundred years
after the pari-nirvana of Buddha, some Bhikshus of Vaisali went
wrong in the matter of the disciplinary rules in ten particulars,
and appealed for their justification to what they said were the
words of Buddha. Hereupon the Arhats and Bhikshus observant of the
rules, to the number in all of 700 monks, examined afresh and
collated the collection of disciplinary books.10
Subsequently men built at this place the tope (in question), which
is still existing.

NOTES

1 It is difficult to
tell what was the peculiar form of this vihara from which it gets
its name; something about the construction of its door, or
cupboards, or galleries.

3 Ambapali, Amrapali,
or Amradarika, “the guardian of the Amra (probably the mango)
tree,” is famous in Buddhist annals. See the account of her
in M. B., pp. 456-8. She was a courtesan. She had been in many
narakas or hells, was 100,000 times a female beggar, and 10,000
times a prostitute; but maintaining perfect continence during the
period of Kasyapa Buddha, Sakyamuni’s predecessor, she had
been born a devi, and finally appeared in earth under an Amra tree
in Vaisali. There again she fell into her old ways, and had a son
by king Bimbisara; but she was won over by Buddha to virtue and
chastity, renounced the world, and attained to the state of an
Arhat. See the earliest account of Ambapali’s presentation of
the garden in “Buddhist Suttas,” pp. 30-33, and the
note there from Bishop Bigandet on pp. 33, 34.

4 Beal gives,
“In this place I have performed the last religious act of my
earthly career;” Giles, “This is the last place I shall
visit;” Remusat, “C’est un lieu ou je reviendrai
bien longtemps apres ceci.” Perhaps the “walk” to
which Buddha referred had been for meditation.

5 See the account of
this legend in the note in M. B., pp. 235, 236, different, but not
less absurd. The first part of Fa-hien’s narrative will have
sent the thoughts of some of my readers to the exposure of the
infant Moses, as related in Exodus. [Certainly did.—JB.]

7 Thus Sakyamuni had
been one of the thousand little boys who floated in the box in the
Ganges. How long back the former age was we cannot tell. I suppose
the tope of the two fathers who became Pratyeka Buddhas had been
built like the one commemorating the laying down of weapons after
Buddha had told his disciples of the strange events in the
past.

8 Bhadra-kalpa,
“the Kalpa of worthies or sages.” “This,”
says Eitel, p. 22, “is a designation for a Kalpa of
stability, so called because 1000 Buddhas appear in the course of
it. Our present period is a Bhadra-kalpa, and four Buddhas have
already appeared. It is to last 236 million years, but over 151
millions have already elapsed.”

9 “The king of
demons.” The name Mara is explained by “the
murderer,” “the destroyer of virtue,” and similar
appellations. “He is,” says Eitel, “the
personification of lust, the god of love, sin, and death, the
arch-enemy of goodness, residing in the heaven Paranirmita
Vasavartin on the top of the Kamadhatu. He assumes different forms,
especially monstrous ones, to tempt or frighten the saints, or
sends his daughters, or inspires wicked men like Devadatta or the
Nirgranthas to do his work. He is often represented with 100 arms,
and riding on an elephant.” The oldest form of the legend in
this paragraph is in “Buddhist Suttas,” Sacred Books of
the East, vol. xi, pp. 41-55, where Buddha says that, if Ananda had
asked him thrice, he would have postponed his death.

a name="10">10 Or the
Vinaya-pitaka. The meeting referred to was an important one, and is
generally spoken of as the second Great Council of the Buddhist
Church. See, on the formation of the Buddhist Canon, Hardy’s
E. M., chap. xviii, and the last chapter of Davids’ Manual,
on the History of the Order. The first Council was that held at
Rajagriha, shortly after Buddha’s death, under the presidency
of Kasyapa;—say about B.C. 410. The second was that spoken of
here;—say about B.C. 300. In Davids’ Manual (p. 216) we
find the ten points of discipline, in which the heretics (I can use
that term here) claimed at least indulgence. Two meetings were held
to consider and discuss them. At the former the orthodox party
barely succeeded in carrying their condemnation of the laxer monks;
and a second and larger meeting, of which Fa-hien speaks, was held
in consequence, and a more emphatic condemnation passed. At the
same time all the books and subjects of discipline seem to have
undergone a careful revision.

The Corean text is clearer than the Chinese as to those who
composed the Council,—the Arhats and orthodox monks. The
leader among them was a Yasas, or Yasada, or Yedsaputtra, who had
been a disciple of Ananda, and must therefore have been a very old
man.

CHAPTER XXVI

REMARKABLE DEATH OF ANANDA.

Four yojanas on from this place to the east brought the
travellers to the confluence of the five rivers.1
When Ananda was going from Magadha2 to Vaisali,
wishing his pari-nirvana to take place (there), the devas informed
king Ajatasatru3 of it, and the king immediately
pursued him, in his own grand carriage, with a body of soldiers,
and had reached the river. (On the other hand), the Lichchhavis of
Vaisali had heard that Amanda was coming (to their city), and they
on their part came to meet him. (In this way), they all arrived
together at the river, and Ananda considered that, if he went
forward, king Ajatasatru would be very angry, while, if he went
back, the Lichchhavis would resent his conduct. He thereupon in the
very middle of the river burnt his body in a fiery ecstasy of
Samadhi,4 and his pari-nirvana was attained. He
divided his body (also) into two, (leaving) the half of it on each
bank; so that each of the two kings got one half as a (sacred)
relic, and took it back (to his own capital), and there raised a
tope over it.

NOTES

1 This spot does not
appear to have been identified. It could not be far from Patna.

2 Magadha was for some
time the headquarters of Buddhism; the holy land, covered with
viharas; a fact perpetuated, as has been observed in a previous
note, in the name of the present Behar, the southern portion of
which corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Magadha.

3 In Singhalese,
Ajasat. See the account of his conversion in M. B., pp. 321-326. He
was the son of king Bimbisara, who was one of the first royal
converts to Buddhism. Ajasat murdered his father, or at least
wrought his death; and was at first opposed to Sakyamuni, and a
favourer of Devadatta. When converted, he became famous for his
liberality in almsgiving.

4 Eitel has a long
article (pp. 114, 115) on the meaning of Samadhi, which is one of
the seven sections of wisdom (bodhyanga). Hardy defines it as
meaning “perfect tranquillity;” Turnour, as
“meditative abstraction;” Burnouf, as
“self-control;” and Edkins, as “ecstatic
reverie.” “Samadhi,” says Eitel, “signifies
the highest pitch of abstract, ecstatic meditation; a state of
absolute indifference to all influences from within or without; a
state of torpor of both the material and spiritual forces of
vitality; a sort of terrestrial nirvana, consistently culminating
in total destruction of life.” He then quotes apparently the
language of the text, “He consumed his body by Agni (the fire
of) Samadhi,” and says it is “a common expression for
the effects of such ecstatic, ultra-mystic
self-annihilation.” All this is simply “a darkening of
counsel by words without knowledge.” Some facts concerning
the death of Ananda are hidden beneath the darkness of the
phraseology, which it is impossible for us to ascertain. By or in
Samadhi he burns his body in the very middle of the river, and then
he divides the relic of the burnt body into two parts (for so
evidently Fa-hien intended his narration to be taken), and leaves
one half on each bank. The account of Ananda’s death in
Nien-ch’ang’s “History of Buddha and the
Patriarchs” is much more extravagant. Crowds of men and devas
are brought together to witness it. The body is divided into four
parts. One is conveyed to the Tushita heaven; a second, to the
palace of a certain Naga king; a third is given to Ajatasatru; and
the fourth to the Lichchhavis. What it all really means I cannot
tell.

CHAPTER XXVII

PATALIPUTTRA OR PATNA, IN MAGADHA. KING ASOKA’S
SPIRIT-BUILT PALACE AND HALLS. THE BUDDHIST BRAHMAN, RADHA-SAMI.
DISPENSARIES AND HOSPITALS.

Having crossed the river, and descended south for a yojana, (the
travellers) came to the town of Pataliputtra,1 in
the kingdom of Magadha, the city where king Asoka2
ruled. The royal palace and halls in the midst of the city, which
exist now as of old, were all made by spirits which he employed,
and which piled up the stones, reared the walls and gates, and
executed the elegant carving and inlaid sculpture-work,—in a
way which no human hands of this world could accomplish.

King Asoka had a younger brother who had attained to be an
Arhat, and resided on Gridhra-kuta3 hill, finding
his delight in solitude and quiet. The king, who sincerely
reverenced him, wished and begged him (to come and live) in his
family, where he could supply all his wants. The other, however,
through his delight in the stillness of the mountain, was unwilling
to accept the invitation, on which the king said to him,
“Only accept my invitation, and I will make a hill for you
inside the city.” Accordingly, he provided the materials of a
feast, called to him the spirits, and announced to them,
“To-morrow you will all receive my invitation; but as there
are no mats for you to sit on, let each one bring (his own
seat).” Next day the spirits came, each one bringing with him
a great rock, (like) a wall, four or five paces square, (for a
seat). When their sitting was over, the king made them form a hill
with the large stones piled on one another, and also at the foot of
the hill, with five large square stones, to make an apartment,
which might be more than thirty cubits long, twenty cubits wide,
and more than ten cubits high.

In this city there had resided a great Brahman,4 named Radha-sami,5 a professor of the
mahayana, of clear discernment and much wisdom, who understood
everything, living by himself in spotless purity. The king of the
country honoured and reverenced him, and served him as his teacher.
If he went to inquire for and greet him, the king did not presume
to sit down alongside of him; and if, in his love and reverence, he
took hold of his hand, as soon as he let it go, the Brahman made
haste to pour water on it and wash it. He might be more than fifty
years old, and all the kingdom looked up to him. By means of this
one man, the Law of Buddha was widely made known, and the followers
of other doctrines did not find it in their power to persecute the
body of monks in any way.

By the side of the tope of Asoka, there has been made a mahayana
monastery, very grand and beautiful; there is also a hinayana one;
the two together containing six or seven hundred monks. The rules
of demeanour and the scholastic arrangements6 in
them are worthy of observation.

Shamans of the highest virtue from all quarters, and students,
inquirers wishing to find out truth and the grounds of it, all
resort to these monasteries. There also resides in this monastery a
Brahman teacher, whose name also is Manjusri,7
whom the Shamans of greatest virtue in the kingdom, and the
mahayana Bhikshus honour and look up to.

The cities and towns of this country are the greatest of all in
the Middle Kingdom. The inhabitants are rich and prosperous, and
vie with one another in the practice of benevolence and
righteousness. Every year on the eighth day of the second month
they celebrate a procession of images. They make a four-wheeled
car, and on it erect a structure of four storeys by means of
bamboos tied together. This is supported by a king-post, with poles
and lances slanting from it, and is rather more than twenty cubits
high, having the shape of a tope. White and silk-like cloth of
hair8 is wrapped all round it, which is then
painted in various colours. They make figures of devas, with gold,
silver, and lapis lazuli grandly blended and having silken
streamers and canopies hung out over them. On the four sides are
niches, with a Buddha seated in each, and a Bodhisattva standing in
attendance on him. There may be twenty cars, all grand and
imposing, but each one different from the others. On the day
mentioned, the monks and laity within the borders all come
together; they have singers and skilful musicians; they pay their
devotion with flowers and incense. The Brahmans come and invite the
Buddhas to enter the city. These do so in order, and remain two
nights in it. All through the night they keep lamps burning, have
skilful music, and present offerings. This is the practice in all
the other kingdoms as well. The Heads of the Vaisya families in
them establish in the cities houses for dispensing charity and
medicines. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans,
widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all
who are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every
kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food
and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at
ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.

When king Asoka destroyed the seven topes, (intending) to make
eighty-four thousand,9 the first which he made was
the great tope, more than three le to the south of this city. In
front of this there is a footprint of Buddha, where a vihara has
been built. The door of it faces the north, and on the south of it
there is a stone pillar, fourteen or fifteen cubits in
circumference, and more than thirty cubits high, on which there is
an inscription, saying, “Asoka gave the jambudvipa to the
general body of all the monks, and then redeemed it from them with
money. This he did three times.”10 North
from the tope 300 or 400 paces, king Asoka built the city of
Ne-le.11 In it there is a stone pillar, which
also is more than thirty feet high, with a lion on the top of it.
On the pillar there is an inscription recording the things which
led to the building of Ne-le, with the number of the year, the day,
and the month.

NOTES

1 The modern Patna,
lat. 25d 28s N., lon. 85d 15s E. The Sanskrit name means “The
city of flowers.” It is the Indian Florence.

2 See chap. x, note 3.
Asoka transferred his court from Rajagriha to Pataliputtra, and
there, in the eighteenth year of his reign, he convoked the third
Great Synod,—according, at least, to southern Buddhism. It
must have been held a few years before B.C. 250; Eitel says in
246.

3 “The
Vulture-hill;” so called because Mara, according to Buddhist
tradition, once assumed the form of a vulture on it to interrupt
the meditation of Ananda; or, more probably, because it was a
resort of vultures. It was near Rajagriha, the earlier capital of
Asoka, so that Fa-hien connects a legend of it with his account of
Patna. It abounded in caverns, and was famous as a resort of
ascetics.

5 So, by the help of
Julien’s “Methode,” I transliterate the Chinese
characters {.} {.} {.} {.}. Beal gives Radhasvami, his Chinese text
having a {.} between {.} and {.}. I suppose the name was Radhasvami
or Radhasami.

6 {.} {.}, the names
of two kinds of schools, often occurring in the Li Ki and Mencius.
Why should there not have been schools in those monasteries in
India as there were in China? Fa-hien himself grew up with other
boys in a monastery, and no doubt had to “go to
school.” And the next sentence shows us there might be
schools for more advanced students as well as for the
Sramaneras.

7 See chap. xvi, note
22. It is perhaps with reference to the famous Bodhisattva that the
Brahman here is said to be “also” named Manjusri.

10 We wish that we
had more particulars of this great transaction, and that we knew
what value in money Asoka set on the whole world. It is to be
observed that he gave it to the monks, and did not receive it from
them. Their right was from him, and he bought it back. He was the
only “Power” that was.

11 We know nothing
more of Ne-le. It could only have been a small place; an outpost
for the defence of Pataliputtra.

CHAPTER XXVIII

RAJAGRIHA, NEW AND OLD. LEGENDS AND INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH
IT.

(The travellers) went on from this to the south-east for nine
yojanas, and came to a small solitary rocky hill,1
at the head or end of which2 was an apartment of
stone, facing the south,—the place where Buddha sat, when
Sakra, Ruler of Devas, brought the deva-musician,
Pancha-(sikha),3 to give pleasure to him by
playing on his lute. Sakra then asked Buddha about forty-two
subjects, tracing (the questions) out with his finger one by one on
the rock.4 The prints of his tracing are still
there; and here also there is a monastery.

A yojana south-west from this place brought them to the village
of Nala,5 where Sariputtra6 was
born, and to which also he returned, and attained here his
pari-nirvana. Over the spot (where his body was burned) there was
built a tope, which is still in existence.

Another yojana to the west brought them to New
Rajagriha,7—the new city which was built
by king Ajatasatru. There were two monasteries in it. Three
hundred paces outside the west gate, king Ajatasatru, having
obtained one portion of the relics of Buddha, built (over them)
a tope, high, large, grand, and beautiful. Leaving the city by
the south gate, and proceeding south four le, one enters a
valley, and comes to a circular space formed by five hills,
which stand all round it, and have the appearance of the
suburban wall of a city. Here was the old city of king
Bimbisara; from east to west about five or six le, and from
north to south seven or eight. It was here that Sariputtra and
Maudgalyayana first saw Upasena;8 that the
Nirgrantha9 made a pit of fire and poisoned the
rice, and then invited Buddha (to eat with him); that king
Ajatasatru made a black elephant intoxicated with liquor,
wishing him to injure Buddha;10 and that at
the north-east corner of the city in a (large) curving (space)
Jivaka built a vihara in the garden of Ambapali,11 and invited Buddha with his 1250 disciples to it,
that he might there make his offerings to support them. (These
places) are still there as of old, but inside the city all is
emptiness and desolation; no man dwells in it.

NOTES

1 Called by
Hsuan-chwang Indra-sila-guha, or “The cavern of Indra.”
It has been identified with a hill near the village of Giryek, on
the bank of the Panchana river, about thirty-six miles from Gaya.
The hill terminates in two peaks overhanging the river, and it is
the more northern and higher of these which Fa-hien had in mind. It
bears an oblong terrace covered with the ruins of several
buildings, especially of a vihara.

2 This does not mean
the top or summit of the hill, but its “headland,”
where it ended at the river.

3 See the account of
this visit of Sakra in M. B., pp. 288-290. It is from Hardy that we
are able to complete here the name of the musician, which appears
in Fa-hien as only Pancha, or “Five.” His harp or lute,
we are told, was “twelve miles long.”

4 Hardy (M. B., pp.
288, 289) makes the subjects only thirteen, which are still to be
found in one of the Sutras (“the Dik-Sanga, in the
Sakra-prasna Sutra”). Whether it was Sakra who wrote his
questions, or Buddha who wrote the answers, depends on the
punctuation. It seems better to make Sakra the writer.

5 Or Nalanda;
identified with the present Baragong. A grand monastery was
subsequently built at it, famous by the residence for five years of
Hsuan-chwang.

6 See chap. xvi, note
11. There is some doubt as to the statement that Nala was his
birthplace.

7 The city of
“Royal Palaces;” “the residence of the Magadha
kings from Bimbisara to Asoka, the first metropolis of Buddhism, at
the foot of the Gridhrakuta mountains. Here the first synod
assembled within a year after Sakyamuni’s death. Its ruins
are still extant at the village of Rajghir, sixteen miles S.W. of
Behar, and form an object of pilgrimage to the Jains (E. H., p.
100).” It is called New Rajagriha to distinguish it from
Kusagarapura, a few miles from it, the old residence of the kings.
Eitel says it was built by Bimbisara, while Fa-hien ascribes it to
Ajatasatru. I suppose the son finished what the father had
begun.

8 One of the five
first followers of Sakyamuni. He is also called Asvajit; in Pali
Assaji; but Asvajit seems to be a military title= “Master or
trainer of horses.” The two more famous disciples met him,
not to lead him, but to be directed by him, to Buddha. See Sacred
Books of the East, vol. xiii, Vinaya Texts, pp. 144-147.

9 One of the six
Tirthyas (Tirthakas=“erroneous teachers;” M. B., pp.
290-292, but I have not found the particulars of the attempts on
Buddha’s life referred to by Fa-hien), or Brahmanical
opponents of Buddha. He was an ascetic, one of the Jnati clan, and
is therefore called Nirgranthajnati. He taught a system of
fatalism, condemned the use of clothes, and thought he could subdue
all passions by fasting. He had a body of followers, who called
themselves by his name (Eitel, pp. 84, 85), and were the
forerunners of the Jains.

10 The king was moved
to this by Devadatta. Of course the elephant disappointed them, and
did homage to Sakyamuni. See Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx,
Vinaya Texts, p. 247.

11 See chap. xxv,
note 3. Jivaka was Ambapali’s son by king Bimbisara, and
devoted himself to the practice of medicine. See the account of him
in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvii, Vinaya Texts, pp.
171-194.

CHAPTER XXIX

GRIDHRA-KUTA HILL, AND LEGENDS. FA-HIEN PASSES A NIGHT ON IT.
HIS REFLECTIONS.

Entering the valley, and keeping along the mountains on the
south-east, after ascending fifteen le, (the travellers) came to
mount Gridhra-kuta.1 Three le before you reach the
top, there is a cavern in the rocks, facing the south, in which
Buddha sat in meditation. Thirty paces to the north-west there is
another, where Ananda was sitting in meditation, when the deva Mara
Pisuna,2 having assumed the form of a large
vulture, took his place in front of the cavern, and frightened the
disciple. Then Buddha, by his mysterious, supernatural power, made
a cleft in the rock, introduced his hand, and stroked
Ananda’s shoulder, so that his fear immediately passed away.
The footprints of the bird and the cleft for (Buddha’s) hand
are still there, and hence comes the name of “The Hill of the
Vulture Cavern.”

In front of the cavern there are the places where the four
Buddhas sat. There are caverns also of the Arhats, one where each
sat and meditated, amounting to several hundred in all. At the
place where in front of his rocky apartment Buddha was walking from
east to west (in meditation), and Devadatta, from among the
beetling cliffs on the north of the mountain, threw a rock across,
and hurt Buddha’s toes,3 the rock is still
there.4

The hall where Buddha preached his Law has been destroyed, and
only the foundations of the brick walls remain. On this hill the
peak is beautifully green, and rises grandly up; it is the highest
of all the five hills. In the New City Fa-hien bought
incense-(sticks), flowers, oil and lamps, and hired two bhikshus,
long resident (at the place), to carry them (to the peak). When he
himself got to it, he made his offerings with the flowers and
incense, and lighted the lamps when the darkness began to come on.
He felt melancholy, but restrained his tears and said, “Here
Buddha delivered the Surangama (Sutra).5 I,
Fa-hien, was born when I could not meet with Buddha; and now I only
see the footprints which he has left, and the place where he lived,
and nothing more.” With this, in front of the rock cavern, he
chanted the Surangama Sutra, remained there over the night, and
then returned towards the New City.6

NOTES

2 See chap. xxv, note
9. Pisuna is a name given to Mara, and signifies “sinful
lust.”

3 See M. B., p. 320.
Hardy says that Devadatta’s attempt was “by the help of
a machine;” but the oldest account in the Sacred Books of the
East, vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, p. 245, agrees with what Fa-hien
implies that he threw the rock with his own arm.

4 And, as described by
Hsuan-chwang, fourteen or fifteen cubits high, and thirty paces
round.

5 See Mr. Bunyiu
Nanjio’s “Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the
Buddhist Tripitaka,” Sutra Pitaka, Nos. 399, 446. It was the
former of these that came on this occasion to the thoughts and
memory of Fa-hien.

6 In a note (p. lx) to
his revised version of our author, Mr. Beal says, “There is a
full account of this perilous visit of Fa-hien, and how he was
attacked by tigers, in the ‘History of the High
Priests.’” But “the high priests” merely
means distinguished monks, “eminent monks,” as Mr.
Nanjio exactly renders the adjectival character. Nor was Fa-hien
“attacked by tigers” on the peak. No
“tigers” appear in the Memoir. “Two black
lions” indeed crouched before him for a time this night,
“licking their lips and waving their tails;” but their
appearance was to “try,” and not to attack him; and
when they saw him resolute, they “drooped their heads, put
down their tails, and prostrated themselves before him.” This
of course is not an historical account, but a legendary tribute to
his bold perseverance.

CHAPTER XXX

THE SRATAPARNA CAVE, OR CAVE OF THE FIRST COUNCIL. LEGENDS.
SUICIDE OF A BHIKSHU.

Out from the old city, after walking over 300 paces, on the west
of the road, (the travellers) found the Karanda Bamboo
garden,1 where the (old) vihara is still in
existence, with a company of monks, who keep (the ground about it)
swept and watered.

North of the vihara two or three le there was the Smasanam,
which name means in Chinese “the field of graves into which
the dead are thrown.”2

As they kept along the mountain on the south, and went west for
300 paces, they found a dwelling among the rocks, named the Pippala
cave,3 in which Buddha regularly sat in meditation
after taking his (midday) meal.

Going on still to the west for five or six le, on the north of
the hill, in the shade, they found the cavern called
Srataparna,4 the place where, after the
nirvana5 of Buddha, 500 Arhats collected the
Sutras. When they brought the Sutras forth, three lofty
seats6 had been prepared and grandly ornamented.
Sariputtra occupied the one on the left, and Maudgalyayana that on
the right. Of the number of five hundred one was wanting.
Mahakasyapa was president (on the middle seat). Amanda was then
outside the door, and could not get in.7 At the
place there was (subsequently) raised a tope, which is still
existing.

Along (the sides of) the hill, there are also a very great many
cells among the rocks, where the various Arhans sat and meditated.
As you leave the old city on the north, and go down east for three
le, there is the rock dwelling of Devadatta, and at a distance of
fifty paces from it there is a large, square, black rock. Formerly
there was a bhikshu, who, as he walked backwards and forwards upon
it, thought with himself:—“This body8
is impermanent, a thing of bitterness and vanity,9
and which cannot be looked on as pure.10 I am
weary of this body, and troubled by it as an evil.” With this
he grasped a knife, and was about to kill himself. But he thought
again:—“The World-honoured one laid down a prohibition
against one’s killing himself.”11
Further it occurred to him:—“Yes, he did; but I now
only wish to kill three poisonous thieves.”12 Immediately with the knife he cut his throat. With the
first gash into the flesh he attained the state of a
Srotapanna;13 when he had gone half through, he
attained to be an Anagamin;14 and when he had cut
right through, he was an Arhat, and attained to
pari-nirvana;15 (and died).

NOTES

1 Karanda Venuvana; a
park presented to Buddha by king Bimbisara, who also built a vihara
in it. See the account of the transaction in M. B., p. 194. The
place was called Karanda, from a creature so named, which awoke the
king just as a snake was about to bite him, and thus saved his
life. In Hardy the creature appears as a squirrel, but Eitel says
that the Karanda is a bird of sweet voice, resembling a magpie, but
herding in flocks; the /cuculus melanoleucus/. See “Buddhist
Birth Stories,” p. 118.

2 The language here is
rather contemptuous, as if our author had no sympathy with any
other mode of disposing of the dead, but by his own Buddhistic
method of cremation.

3 The Chinese
characters used for the name of this cavern serve also to name the
pippala (peepul) tree, the /ficus religiosa/. They make us think
that there was such a tree overshadowing the cave; but Fa-hien
would hardly have neglected to mention such a circumstance.

4 A very great place
in the annals of Buddhism. The Council in the Srataparna cave did
not come together fortuitously, but appears to have been convoked
by the older members to settle the rules and doctrines of the
order. The cave was prepared for the occasion by king Ajatasatru.
From the expression about the “bringing forth of the
King,” it would seem that the Sutras or some of them had been
already committed to writing. May not the meaning of King {.} here
be extended to the Vinaya rules, as well as the Sutras, and mean
“the standards” of the system generally? See
Davids’ Manual, chapter ix, and Sacred Books of the East,
vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, pp. 370-385.

6 Instead of
“high” seats, the Chinese texts have
“vacant.” The character for “prepared”
denotes “spread;”—they were carpeted; perhaps,
both cushioned and carpeted, being rugs spread on the ground,
raised higher than the other places for seats.

7 Did they not
contrive to let him in, with some cachinnation, even in so august
an assembly, that so important a member should have been shut
out?

8 “The life of
this body” would, I think, fairly express the idea of the
bhikshu.

11 See E. M., p.
152:—“Buddha made a law forbidding the monks to commit
suicide. He prohibited any one from discoursing on the miseries of
life in such a manner as to cause desperation.” See also M.
B., pp. 464, 465.

14 The Anagamin
belong to the third degree of Buddhistic saintship, the third class
of Aryas, who are no more liable to be reborn as men, but are to be
born once more as devas, when they will forthwith become Arhats,
and attain to nirvana. E. H., pp. 8, 9.

15 Our author
expresses no opinion of his own on the act of this bhikshu. Must it
not have been a good act, when it was attended, in the very act of
performance, by such blessed consequences? But if Buddhism had not
something better to show than what appears here, it would not
attract the interest which it now does. The bhikshu was evidently
rather out of his mind; and the verdict of a coroner’s
inquest of this nineteenth century would have pronounced that he
killed himself “in a fit of insanity.”

CHAPTER XXXI

GAYA. SAKYAMUNI’S ATTAINING TO THE BUDDHASHIP; AND OTHER
LEGENDS.

From this place, after travelling to the west for four yojanas,
(the pilgrims) came to the city of Gaya;1 but
inside the city all was emptiness and desolation. Going on again to
the south for twenty le, they arrived at the place where the
Bodhisattva for six years practised with himself painful
austerities. All around was forest.

Three le west from here they came to the place where, when
Buddha had gone into the water to bathe, a deva bent down the
branch of a tree, by means of which he succeeded in getting out of
the pool.2

Two le north from this was the place where the Gramika girls
presented to Buddha the rice-gruel made with milk;3 and two le north from this (again) was the place where,
seated on a rock under a great tree, and facing the east, he ate
(the gruel). The tree and the rock are there at the present day.
The rock may be six cubits in breadth and length, and rather more
than two cubits in height. In Central India the cold and heat are
so equally tempered that trees will live in it for several thousand
and even for ten thousand years.

Half a yojana from this place to the north-east there was a
cavern in the rocks, into which the Bodhisattva entered, and sat
cross-legged with his face to the west. (As he did so), he said to
himself, “If I am to attain to perfect wisdom (and become
Buddha), let there be a supernatural attestation of it.” On
the wall of the rock there appeared immediately the shadow of a
Buddha, rather more than three feet in length, which is still
bright at the present day. At this moment heaven and earth were
greatly moved, and devas in the air spoke plainly, “This is
not the place where any Buddha of the past, or he that is to come,
has attained, or will attain, to perfect Wisdom. Less than half a
yojana from this to the south-west will bring you to the
patra4 tree, where all past Buddhas have attained,
and all to come must attain, to perfect Wisdom.” When they
had spoken these words, they immediately led the way forwards to
the place, singing as they did so. As they thus went away, the
Bodhisattva arose and walked (after them). At a distance of thirty
paces from the tree, a deva gave him the grass of lucky
omen,5 which he received and went on. After (he
had proceeded) fifteen paces, 500 green birds came flying towards
him, went round him thrice, and disappeared. The Bodhisattva went
forward to the patra tree, placed the kusa grass at the foot of it,
and sat down with his face to the east. Then king Mara sent three
beautiful young ladies, who came from the north, to tempt him,
while he himself came from the south to do the same. The
Bodhisattva put his toes down on the ground, and the demon soldiers
retired and dispersed, and the three young ladies were changed into
old (grand-)mothers.6

At the place mentioned above of the six years’ painful
austerities, and at all these other places, men subsequently reared
topes and set up images, which all exist at the present day.

Where Buddha, after attaining to perfect wisdom, for seven days
contemplated the tree, and experienced the joy of
vimukti;7 where, under the patra tree, he
walked backwards and forwards from west to east for seven days;
where the devas made a hall appear, composed of the seven
precious substances, and presented offerings to him for seven
days; where the blind dragon Muchilinda8
encircled him for seven days; where he sat under the nyagrodha
tree, on a square rock, with his face to the east, and
Brahma-deva9 came and made his request to him;
where the four deva kings brought to him their
alms-bowls;10 where the 500 merchants11 presented to him the roasted flour and honey; and
where he converted the brothers Kasyapa and their thousand
disciples;12—at all these places topes
were reared.

At the place where Buddha attained to perfect Wisdom, there are
three monasteries, in all of which there are monks residing. The
families of their people around supply the societies of these monks
with an abundant sufficiency of what they require, so that there is
no lack or stint.13 The disciplinary rules are
strictly observed by them. The laws regulating their demeanour in
sitting, rising, and entering when the others are assembled, are
those which have been practised by all the saints since Buddha was
in the world down to the present day. The places of the four great
topes have been fixed, and handed down without break, since Buddha
attained to nirvana. Those four great topes are those at the places
where Buddha was born; where he attained to Wisdom; where he (began
to) move the wheel of his Law; and where he attained to
pari-nirvana.

NOTES

1 Gaya, a city of
Magadha, was north-west of the present Gayah (lat. 24d 47s N., lon.
85d 1s E). It was here that Sakyamuni lived for seven years, after
quitting his family, until he attained to Buddhaship. The place is
still frequented by pilgrims. E. H., p. 41.

2 This is told so as
to make us think that he was in danger of being drowned; but this
does not appear in the only other account of the incident I have
met with,—in “The Life of the Buddha,” p. 31. And
he was not yet Buddha, though he is here called so; unless indeed
the narrative is confused, and the incidents do not follow in the
order of time.

3 An incident similar
to this is told, with many additions, in Hardy’s M. B., pp.
166-168; “The Life of the Buddha,” p. 30; and the
“Buddhist Birth Stories,” pp. 91, 92; but the name of
the ministering girl or girls is different. I take Gramika from a
note in Beal’s revised version; it seems to me a happy
solution of the difficulty caused by the {.} {.} of Fa-hien.

4 Called “the
tree of leaves,” and “the tree of reflection;” a
palm tree, the /borassus flabellifera/, described as a tree which
never loses its leaves. It is often confounded with the pippala. E.
H., p. 92.

8 Called also Maha, or
the Great Muchilinda. Eitel says: “A naga king, the tutelary
deity of a lake near which Sakyamuni once sat for seven days
absorbed in meditation, whilst the king guarded him.” The
account (p. 35) in “The Life of the Buddha”
is:—“Buddha went to where lived the naga king
Muchilinda, and he, wishing to preserve him from the sun and rain,
wrapped his body seven times round him, and spread out his hood
over his head; and there he remained seven days in thought.”
So also the Nidana Katha, in “Buddhist Birth Stories,”
p. 109.

9 This was Brahma
himself, though “king” is omitted. What he requested of
the Buddha was that he would begin the preaching of his Law. Nidana
Katha, p. 111.

11 The other accounts
mention only two; but in M. B., p. 182, and the Nidana Katha, p.
110, these two have 500 well-laden waggons with them.

12 These must not be
confounded with Mahakasyapa of chap. xvi, note 17. They were three
brothers, Uruvilva, Gaya, and Nadi-Kasyapa, up to this time holders
of “erroneous” views, having 500, 300, and 200
disciples respectively. They became distinguished followers of
Sakyamuni; and are—each of them—to become Buddha
by-and-by. See the Nidana Katha, pp. 114, 115.

13 This seems to be
the meaning; but I do not wonder that some understand the sentence
of the benevolence of the monkish population to the
travellers.

CHAPTER XXXII

LEGEND OF KING ASOKA IN A FORMER BIRTH, AND HIS NARAKA.

When king Asoka, in a former birth,1 was a
little boy and played on the road, he met Kasyapa Buddha walking.
(The stranger) begged food, and the boy pleasantly took a handful
of earth and gave it to him. The Buddha took the earth, and
returned it to the ground on which he was walking; but because of
this (the boy) received the recompense of becoming a king of the
iron wheel,2 to rule over Jambudvipa. (Once) when
he was making a judicial tour of inspection through Jambudvipa, he
saw, between the iron circuit of the two hills, a naraka3 for the punishment of wicked men. Having thereupon asked
his ministers what sort of a thing it was, they replied, “It
belongs to Yama,4 king of demons, for punishing
wicked people.” The king thought within himself:
—”(Even) the king of demons is able to make a naraka in
which to deal with wicked men; why should not I, who am the lord of
men, make a naraka in which to deal with wicked men?” He
forthwith asked his ministers who could make for him a naraka and
preside over the punishment of wicked people in it. They replied
that it was only a man of extreme wickedness who could make it; and
the king thereupon sent officers to seek everywhere for (such) a
bad man; and they saw by the side of a pond a man tall and strong,
with a black countenance, yellow hair, and green eyes, hooking up
the fish with his feet, while he called to him birds and beasts,
and, when they came, then shot and killed them, so that not one
escaped. Having got this man, they took him to the king, who
secretly charged him, “You must make a square enclosure with
high walls. Plant in it all kinds of flowers and fruits; make good
ponds in it for bathing; make it grand and imposing in every way,
so that men shall look to it with thirsting desire; make its gates
strong and sure; and when any one enters, instantly seize him and
punish him as a sinner, not allowing him to get out. Even if I
should enter, punish me as a sinner in the same way, and do not let
me go. I now appoint you master of that naraka.”

Soon after this a bhikshu, pursuing his regular course of
begging his food, entered the gate (of the place). When the lictors
of the naraka saw him, they were about to subject him to their
tortures; but he, frightened, begged them to allow him a moment in
which to eat his midday meal. Immediately after, there came in
another man, whom they thrust into a mortar and pounded till a red
froth overflowed. As the bhikshu looked on, there came to him the
thought of the impermanence, the painful suffering and insanity of
this body, and how it is but as a bubble and as foam; and instantly
he attained to Arhatship. Immediately after, the lictors seized
him, and threw him into a caldron of boiling water. There was a
look of joyful satisfaction, however, in the bhikshu’s
countenance. The fire was extinguished, and the water became cold.
In the middle (of the caldron) there rose up a lotus flower, with
the bhikshu seated on it. The lictors at once went and reported to
the king that there was a marvellous occurrence in the naraka, and
wished him to go and see it; but the king said, “I formerly
made such an agreement that now I dare not go (to the
place).” The lictors said, “This is not a small matter.
Your majesty ought to go quickly. Let your former agreement be
altered.” The king thereupon followed them, and entered (the
naraka), when the bhikshu preached the Law to him, and he believed,
and was made free.5 Forthwith he demolished the
naraka, and repented of all the evil which he had formerly done.
From this time he believed in and honoured the Three Precious Ones,
and constantly went to a patra tree, repenting under it, with
self-reproach, of his errors, and accepting the eight rules of
abstinence.6

The queen asked where the king was constantly going to, and the
ministers replied that he was constantly to be seen under (such and
such) a patra tree. She watched for a time when the king was not
there, and then sent men to cut the tree down. When the king came,
and saw what had been done, he swooned away with sorrow, and fell
to the ground. His ministers sprinkled water on his face, and after
a considerable time he revived. He then built all round (the stump)
with bricks, and poured a hundred pitchers of cows’ milk on
the roots; and as he lay with his four limbs spread out on the
ground, he took this oath, “If the tree do not live, I will
never rise from this.” When he had uttered this oath, the
tree immediately began to grow from the roots, and it has continued
to grow till now, when it is nearly 100 cubits in height.

NOTES

1 Here is an instance
of {.} used, as was pointed out in chap. ix, note 3, for a former
age; and not merely a former time. Perhaps “a former
birth” is the best translation. The Corean reading of Kasyapa
Buddha is certainly preferable to the Chinese “Sakya
Buddha.”

3 I prefer to retain
the Sanskrit term here, instead of translating the Chinese text by
“Earth’s prison {.} {.},” or “a prison in
the earth;” the name for which has been adopted generally by
Christian missionaries in China for gehenna and hell.

4 Eitel (p. 173)
says:—“Yama was originally the Aryan god of the dead,
living in a heaven above the world, the regent of the south; but
Brahmanism transferred his abode to hell. Both views have been
retained by Buddhism.” The Yama of the text is the
“regent of the narakas, residing south of Jambudvipa, outside
the Chakravalas (the double circuit of mountains above), in a
palace built of brass and iron. He has a sister who controls all
the female culprits, as he exclusively deals with the male sex.
Three times, however, in every twenty-four hours, a demon pours
boiling copper into Yama’s mouth, and squeezes it down his
throat, causing him unspeakable pain.” Such, however, is the
wonderful “transrotation of births,” that when
Yama’s sins have been expiated, he is to be reborn as Buddha,
under the name of “The Universal King.”

5 Or, “was
loosed;” from the bonds, I suppose, of his various
illusions.

CHAPTER XXXIII

MOUNT GURUPADA, WHERE KASYAPA BUDDHA’S ENTIRE SKELETON
IS.

(The travellers), going on from this three le to the south, came
to a mountain named Gurupada,1 inside which
Mahakasyapa even now is. He made a cleft, and went down into it,
though the place where he entered would not (now) admit a man.
Having gone down very far, there was a hole on one side, and there
the complete body of Kasyapa (still) abides. Outside the hole (at
which he entered) is the earth with which he had washed his
hands.2 If the people living thereabouts have a
sore on their heads, they plaster on it some of the earth from
this, and feel immediately easier.3 On this
mountain, now as of old, there are Arhats abiding. Devotees of our
Law from the various countries in that quarter go year by year to
the mountain, and present offerings to Kasyapa; and to those whose
hearts are strong in faith there come Arhats at night, and talk
with them, discussing and explaining their doubts, and disappearing
suddenly afterwards.

On this hill hazels grow luxuriously; and there are many lions,
tigers, and wolves, so that people should not travel
incautiously.

NOTES

1
“Fowl’s-foot hill,” “with three peaks,
resembling the foot of a chicken. It lies seven miles south-east of
Gaya, and was the residence of Mahakasyapa, who is said to be still
living inside this mountain.” So Eitel says, p. 58; but this
chapter does not say that Kasyapa is in the mountain alive, but
that his body entire is in a recess or hole in it. Hardy (M. B., p.
97) says that after Kasyapa Buddha’s body was burnt, the
bones still remained in their usual position, presenting the
appearance of a perfect skeleton. It is of him that the chapter
speaks, and not of the famous disciple of Sakyamuni, who also is
called Mahakasyapa. This will appear also on a comparison of
Eitel’s articles on “Mahakasyapa” and
“Kasyapa Buddha.”

2 Was it a custom to
wash the hands with “earth,” as is often done with
sand?

CHAPTER XXXIV

ON THE WAY BACK TO PATNA. VARANASI, OR BENARES.
SAKYAMUNI’S FIRST DOINGS AFTER BECOMING BUDDHA.

Fa-hien1 returned (from here) towards
Pataliputtra,2 keeping along the course of the
Ganges and descending in the direction of the west. After going ten
yojanas he found a vihara, named “The
Wilderness,”—a place where Buddha had dwelt, and where
there are monks now.

Pursuing the same course, and going still to the west, he
arrived, after twelve yojanas, at the city of Varanasi3 in the kingdom of Kasi. Rather more than ten le to the
north-east of the city, he found the vihara in the park of
“The rishi’s Deer-wild.”4 In
this park there formerly resided a Pratyeka Buddha,5 with whom the deer were regularly in the habit of
stopping for the night. When the World-honoured one was about to
attain to perfect Wisdom, the devas sang in the sky, “The son
of king Suddhodana, having quitted his family and studied the Path
(of Wisdom),6 will now in seven days become
Buddha.” The Pratyeka Buddha heard their words, and
immediately attained to nirvana; and hence this place was named
“The Park of the rishi’s Deer-wild.”7 After the World-honoured one had attained to perfect
Wisdom, men build the vihara in it.

Buddha wished to convert Kaundinya8 and his
four companions; but they, (being aware of his intention), said to
one another, “This Sramana Gotama9 for six
years continued in the practice of painful austerities, eating
daily (only) a single hemp-seed, and one grain of rice, without
attaining to the Path (of Wisdom); how much less will he do so now
that he has entered (again) among men, and is giving the reins to
(the indulgence of) his body, his speech, and his thoughts! What
has he to do with the Path (of Wisdom)? To-day, when he comes to
us, let us be on our guard not to speak with him.” At the
places where the five men all rose up, and respectfully saluted
(Buddha), when he came to them; where, sixty paces north from this,
he sat with his face to the east, and first turned the wheel of the
Law, converting Kaundinya and the four others; where, twenty paces
further to the north, he delivered his prophecy concerning
Maitreya;10 and where, at a distance of fifty
paces to the south, the dragon Elapattra11 asked
him, “When shall I get free from this naga
body?”—at all these places topes were reared, and are
still existing. In (the park) there are two monasteries, in both of
which there are monks residing.

When you go north-west from the vihara of the Deer-wild park for
thirteen yojanas, there is a kingdom named Kausambi.12 Its vihara is named Ghochiravana13—a place where Buddha formerly resided. Now, as
of old, there is a company of monks there, most of whom are
students of the hinayana.

East from (this), when you have travelled eight yojanas, is the
place where Buddha converted14 the evil demon.
There, and where he walked (in meditation) and sat at the place
which was his regular abode, there have been topes erected. There
is also a monastery, which may contain more than a hundred
monks.

NOTES

1 Fa-hien is here
mentioned singly, as in the account of his visit to the cave on
Gridhra-kuta. I think that Tao-ching may have remained at Patna
after their first visit to it.

4 “The
rishi,” says Eitel, “is a man whose bodily frame has
undergone a certain transformation by dint of meditation and
ascetism, so that he is, for an indefinite period, exempt from
decrepitude, age, and death. As this period is believed to extend
far beyond the usual duration of human life, such persons are
called, and popularly believed to be, immortals.” Rishis are
divided into various classes; and rishi-ism is spoken of as a
seventh part of transrotation, and rishis are referred to as the
seventh class of sentient beings. Taoism, as well as Buddhism, has
its Seen jin.

7 For another legend
about this park, and the identification of “a fine
wood” still existing, see note in Beal’s first version,
p. 135.

8 A prince of Magadha
and a maternal uncle of Sakyamuni, who gave him the name of Ajnata,
meaning automat; and hence he often appears as Ajnata Kaundinya. He
and his four friends had followed Sakyamuni into the Uruvilva
desert, sympathising with him in the austerities he endured, and
hoping that they would issue in his Buddhaship. They were not aware
that that issue had come; which may show us that all the accounts
in the thirty-first chapter are merely descriptions, by means of
external imagery, of what had taken place internally. The kingdom
of nirvana had come without observation. These friends knew it not;
and they were offended by what they considered Sakyamuni’s
failure, and the course he was now pursuing. See the account of
their conversion in M. B., p. 186.

9 This is the only
instance in Fa-hien’s text where the Bodhisattva or Buddha is
called by the surname “Gotama.” For the most part our
traveller uses Buddha as a proper name, though it properly means
“The Enlightened.” He uses also the combinations
“Sakya Buddha,”=“The Buddha of the Sakya
tribe,” and “Sakyamuni,”=“The Sakya
sage.” This last is the most common designation of the Buddha
in China, and to my mind best combines the characteristics of a
descriptive and a proper name. Among other Buddhistic peoples
“Gotama” and “Gotama Buddha” are the more
frequent designations. It is not easy to account for the rise of
the surname Gotama in the Sakya family, as Oldenberg acknowledges.
He says that “the Sakyas, in accordance with the custom of
Indian noble families, had borrowed it from one of the ancient
Vedic bard families.” Dr. Davids (“Buddhism,” p.
27) says: “The family name was certainly Gautama,”
adding in a note, “It is a curious fact that Gautama is still
the family name of the Rajput chiefs of Nagara, the village which
has been identified with Kapilavastu.” Dr. Eitel says that
“Gautama was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family, which
counted the ancient rishi Gautama among its ancestors.” When
we proceed, however, to endeavour to trace the connexion of that
Brahmanical rishi with the Sakya house, by means of 1323, 1468,
1469, and other historical works in Nanjio’s Catalogue, we
soon find that Indian histories have no surer foundation than the
shifting sand;—see E. H., on the name Sakya, pp. 108, 109. We
must be content for the present simply to accept Gotama as one of
the surnames of the Buddha with whom we have to do.

10 See chap. vi, note
5. It is there said that the prediction of Maitreya’s
succession to the Buddhaship was made to him in the Tushita heaven.
Was there a repetition of it here in the Deer-park, or was a
prediction now given concerning something else?

12 Identified by some
with Kusia, near Kurrah (lat. 25d 41s N., lon. 81d 27s E.); by
others with Kosam on the Jumna, thirty miles above Allahabad. See
E. H., p. 55.

13 Ghochira was the
name of a Vaisya elder, or head, who presented a garden and vihara
to Buddha. Hardy (M. B., p. 356) quotes a statement from a
Singhalese authority that Sakyamuni resided here during the ninth
year of his Buddhaship.

14 Dr. Davids thinks
this may refer to the striking and beautiful story of the
conversion of the Yakkha Alavaka, as related in the Uragavagga,
Alavakasutta, pp. 29-31 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. x, part
ii).

CHAPTER XXXV

DAKSHINA, AND THE PIGEON MONASTERY.

South from this 200 yojanas, there is a country named
Dakshina,1 where there is a monastery (dedicated
to) the bygone Kasyapa Buddha, and which has been hewn out from a
large hill of rock. It consists in all of five storeys;—the
lowest, having the form of an elephant, with 500 apartments in the
rock; the second, having the form of a lion, with 400 apartments;
the third, having the form of a horse, with 300 apartments; the
fourth, having the form of an ox, with 200 apartments; and the
fifth, having the form of a pigeon, with 100 apartments. At the
very top there is a spring, the water of which, always in front of
the apartments in the rock, goes round among the rooms, now
circling, now curving, till in this way it arrives at the lowest
storey, having followed the shape of the structure, and flows out
there at the door. Everywhere in the apartments of the monks, the
rock has been pierced so as to form windows for the admission of
light, so that they are all bright, without any being left in
darkness. At the four corners of the (tiers of) apartments, the
rock has been hewn so as to form steps for ascending to the top (of
each). The men of the present day, being of small size, and going
up step by step, manage to get to the top; but in a former age,
they did so at one step.2 Because of this, the
monastery is called Paravata, that being the Indian name for a
pigeon. There are always Arhats residing in it.

The country about is (a tract of) uncultivated
hillocks,3 without inhabitants. At a very long
distance from the hill there are villages, where the people all
have bad and erroneous views, and do not know the Sramanas of
the Law of Buddha, Brahmanas, or (devotees of) any of the other
and different schools. The people of that country are constantly
seeing men on the wing, who come and enter this monastery. On
one occasion, when devotees of various countries came to perform
their worship at it, the people of those villages said to them,
“Why do you not fly? The devotees whom we have seen
hereabouts all fly;” and the strangers answered, on the
spur of the moment, “Our wings are not yet fully
formed.”

The kingdom of Dakshina is out of the way, and perilous to
traverse. There are difficulties in connexion with the roads; but
those who know how to manage such difficulties and wish to proceed
should bring with them money and various articles, and give them to
the king. He will then send men to escort them. These will (at
different stages) pass them over to others, who will show them the
shortest routes. Fa-hien, however, was after all unable to go
there; but having received the (above) accounts from men of the
country, he has narrated them.

NOTES

1 Said to be the
ancient name of the Deccan. As to the various marvels in the
chapter, it must be borne in mind that our author, as he tells us
at the end, only gives them from hearsay. See “Buddhist
Records of the Western World,” vol. ii, pp. 214, 215, where
the description, however, is very different.

2 Compare the account
of Buddha’s great stride of fifteen yojanas in Ceylon, as
related in chapter xxxviii.

3 See the same phrase
in the Books of the Later Han dynasty, the twenty-fourth Book of
Biographies, p. 9b.

CHAPTER XXXVI

IN PATNA. FA-HIEN’S LABOURS IN TRANSCRIPTION OF
MANUSCRIPTS, AND INDIAN STUDIES FOR THREE YEARS.

From Varanasi (the travellers) went back east to Pataliputtra.
Fa-hien’s original object had been to search for (copies of)
the Vinaya. In the various kingdoms of North India, however, he had
found one master transmitting orally (the rules) to another, but no
written copies which he could transcribe. He had therefore
travelled far and come on to Central India. Here, in the mahayana
monastery,1 he found a copy of the Vinaya,
containing the Mahasanghika2 rules,—those
which were observed in the first Great Council, while Buddha was
still in the world. The original copy was handed down in the
Jetavana vihara. As to the other eighteen schools,3 each one has the views and decisions of its own masters.
Those agree (with this) in the general meaning, but they have small
and trivial differences, as when one opens and another
shuts.4 This copy (of the rules), however, is the
most complete, with the fullest explanations.5

He further got a transcript of the rules in six or seven
thousand gathas,6 being the
sarvastivadah7 rules,—those which are
observed by the communities of monks in the land of Ts’in;
which also have all been handed down orally from master to
master without being committed to writing. In the community
here, moreover, we got the
Samyuktabhi-dharma-hridaya-(sastra),8
containing about six or seven thousand gathas; he also got a
Sutra of 2500 gathas; one chapter of the Parinir-vana-vaipulya
Sutra,9 of about 5000 gathas; and the
Mahasan-ghikah Abhidharma.

In consequence (of this success in his quest) Fa-hien stayed
here for three years, learning Sanskrit books and the Sanskrit
speech, and writing out the Vinaya rules. When Tao-ching arrived in
the Central Kingdom, and saw the rules observed by the Sramanas,
and the dignified demeanour in their societies which he remarked
under all occurring circumstances, he sadly called to mind in what
a mutilated and imperfect condition the rules were among the
monkish communities in the land of Ts’in, and made the
following aspiration:—“From this time forth till I come
to the state of Buddha, let me not be born in a frontier
land.”10 He remained accordingly (in
India), and did not return (to the land of Han). Fa-hien, however,
whose original purpose had been to secure the introduction of the
complete Vinaya rules into the land of Han, returned there
alone.

NOTES

2 Mahasanghikah simply
means “the Great Assembly,” that is, of monks. When was
this first assembly in the time of Sakyamuni held? It does not
appear that the rules observed at it were written down at the time.
The document found by Fa-hien would be a record of those rules; or
rather a copy of that record. We must suppose that the original
record had disappeared from the Jetavana vihara, or Fa-hien would
probably have spoken of it when he was there, and copied it, if he
had been allowed to do so.

3 The eighteen pu {.}.
Four times in this chapter the character called pu occurs, and in
the first and two last instances it can only have the meaning,
often belonging to it, of “copy.” The second instance,
however, is different. How should there be eighteen copies, all
different from the original, and from one another, in minor
matters? We are compelled to translate—“the eighteen
schools,” an expression well known in all Buddhist writings.
See Rhys Davids’ Manual, p. 218, and the authorities there
quoted.

4 This is equivalent
to the “binding” and “loosing,”
“opening” and “shutting,” which found their
way into the New Testament, and the Christian Church, from the
schools of the Jewish Rabbins.

5 It was afterwards
translated by Fa-hien into Chinese. See Nanjio’s Catalogue of
the Chinese Tripitaka, columns 400 and 401, and Nos. 1119 and 1150,
columns 247 and 253.

6 A gatha is a stanza,
generally consisting, it has seemed to me, of a few, commonly of
two, lines somewhat metrically arranged; but I do not know that its
length is strictly defined.

7 “A
branch,” says Eitel, “of the great vaibhashika school,
asserting the reality of all visible phenomena, and claiming the
authority of Rahula.”

8 See Nanjio’s
Catalogue, No. 1287. He does not mention it in his account of
Fa-hien, who, he says, translated the Samyukta-pitaka Sutra.

10 This then would be
the consummation of the Sramana’s being,—to get to be
Buddha, the Buddha of his time in his Kalpa; and Tao-ching thought
that he could attain to this consummation by a succession of
births; and was likely to attain to it sooner by living only in
India. If all this was not in his mind, he yet felt that each of
his successive lives would be happier, if lived in India.

CHAPTER XXXVII

TO CHAMPA AND TAMALIPTI. STAY AND LABOURS THERE FOR THREE
YEARS. TAKES SHIP TO SINGHALA, OR CEYLON.

Following the course of the Ganges, and descending eastwards for
eighteen yojanas, he found on the southern bank the great kingdom
of Champa,1 with topes reared at the places where
Buddha walked in meditation by his vihara, and where he and the
three Buddhas, his predecessors, sat. There were monks residing at
them all. Continuing his journey east for nearly fifty yojanas, he
came to the country of Tamalipti,2 (the capital of
which is) a seaport. In the country there are twenty-two
monasteries, at all of which there are monks residing. The Law of
Buddha is also flourishing in it. Here Fa-hien stayed two years,
writing out his Sutras,3 and drawing pictures of
images.

After this he embarked in a large merchant-vessel, and went
floating over the sea to the south-west. It was the beginning of
winter, and the wind was favourable; and, after fourteen days,
sailing day and night, they came to the country of
Singhala.4 The people said that it was distant
(from Tamalipti) about 700 yojanas.

The kingdom is on a large island, extending from east to west
fifty yojanas, and from north to south thirty. Left and right from
it there are as many as 100 small islands, distant from one another
ten, twenty, or even 200 le; but all subject to the large island.
Most of them produce pearls and precious stones of various kinds;
there is one which produces the pure and brilliant
pearl,5—an island which would form a
square of about ten le. The king employs men to watch and
protect it, and requires three out of every ten such pearls,
which the collectors find.

NOTES

1 Probably the modern
Champanagur, three miles west of Baglipoor, lat. 25d 14s N., lon.
56d 55s E.

2 Then the principal
emporium for the trade with Ceylon and China; the modern Tam-look,
lat. 22d 17s N., lon. 88d 2s E.; near the mouth of the Hoogly.

3 Perhaps Ching {.} is
used here for any portions of the Tripitaka which he had
obtained.

4 “The Kingdom
of the Lion,” Ceylon. Singhala was the name of a merchant
adventurer from India, to whom the founding of the kingdom was
ascribed. His father was named Singha, “the Lion,”
which became the name of the country;—Singhala, or
Singha-Kingdom, “the Country of the Lion.”

5 Called the mani
pearl or bead. Mani is explained as meaning “free from
stain,” “bright and growing purer.” It is a
symbol of Buddha and of his Law. The most valuable rosaries are
made of manis.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

AT CEYLON. RISE OF THE KINGDOM. FEATS OF BUDDHA. TOPES AND
MONASTERIES. STATUE OF BUDDHA IN JADE. BO TREE. FESTIVAL OF
BUDDHA’S TOOTH.

The country originally had no human inhabitants,1 but was occupied only by spirits and nagas, with which
merchants of various countries carried on a trade. When the
trafficking was taking place, the spirits did not show themselves.
They simply set forth their precious commodities, with labels of
the price attached to them; while the merchants made their
purchases according to the price; and took the things away.

Through the coming and going of the merchants (in this way),
when they went away, the people of (their) various countries heard
how pleasant the land was, and flocked to it in numbers till it
became a great nation. The (climate) is temperate and attractive,
without any difference of summer and winter. The vegetation is
always luxuriant. Cultivation proceeds whenever men think fit:
there are no fixed seasons for it.

When Buddha came to this country,2 wishing to
transform the wicked nagas, by his supernatural power he planted
one foot at the north of the royal city, and the other on the top
of a mountain,3 the two being fifteen yojanas
apart. Over the footprint at the north of the city the king built a
large tope, 400 cubits high, grandly adorned with gold and silver,
and finished with a combination of all the precious substances. By
the side of the top he further built a monastery, called the
Abhayagiri,4 where there are (now) five thousand
monks. There is in it a hall of Buddha, adorned with carved and
inlaid works of gold and silver, and rich in the seven precious
substances, in which there is an image (of Buddha) in green jade,
more than twenty cubits in height, glittering all over with those
substances, and having an appearance of solemn dignity which words
cannot express. In the palm of the right hand there is a priceless
pearl. Several years had now elapsed since Fa-hien left the land of
Han; the men with whom he had been in intercourse had all been of
regions strange to him; his eyes had not rested on an old and
familiar hill or river, plant or tree; his fellow-travellers,
moreover, had been separated from him, some by death, and others
flowing off in different directions; no face or shadow was now with
him but his own, and a constant sadness was in his heart. Suddenly
(one day), when by the side of this image of jade, he saw a
merchant presenting as his offering a fan of white silk;5 and the tears of sorrow involuntarily filled his eyes
and fell down.

A former king of the country had sent to Central India and got a
slip of the patra tree,6 which he planted by the
side of the hall of Buddha, where a tree grew up to the height of
about 200 cubits. As it bent on one side towards the south-east,
the king, fearing it would fall, propped it with a post eight or
nine spans round. The tree began to grow at the very heart of the
prop, where it met (the trunk); (a shoot) pierced through the post,
and went down to the ground, where it entered and formed roots,
that rose (to the surface) and were about four spans round.
Although the post was split in the middle, the outer portions kept
hold (of the shoot), and people did not remove them. Beneath the
tree there has been built a vihara, in which there is an image (of
Buddha) seated, which the monks and commonalty reverence and look
up to without ever becoming wearied. In the city there has been
reared also the vihara of Buddha’s tooth, on which, as well
as on the other, the seven precious substances have been
employed.

The king practises the Brahmanical purifications, and the
sincerity of the faith and reverence of the population inside the
city are also great. Since the establishment of government in the
kingdom there has been no famine or scarcity, no revolution or
disorder. In the treasuries of the monkish communities there are
many precious stones, and the priceless manis. One of the kings
(once) entered one of those treasuries, and when he looked all
round and saw the priceless pearls, his covetous greed was excited,
and he wished to take them to himself by force. In three days,
however, he came to himself, and immediately went and bowed his
head to the ground in the midst of the monks, to show his
repentance of the evil thought. As a sequel to this, he informed
the monks (of what had been in his mind), and desired them to make
a regulation that from that day forth the king should not be
allowed to enter the treasury and see (what it contained), and that
no bhikshu should enter it till after he had been in orders for a
period of full forty years.7

In the city there are many Vaisya elders and Sabaean8 merchants, whose houses are stately and beautiful. The
lanes and passages are kept in good order. At the heads of the four
principal streets there have been built preaching halls, where, on
the eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth days of the month, they
spread carpets, and set forth a pulpit, while the monks and
commonalty from all quarters come together to hear the Law. The
people say that in the kingdom there may be altogether sixty
thousand monks, who get their food from their common stores. The
king, besides, prepares elsewhere in the city a common supply of
food for five or six thousand more. When any want, they take their
great bowls, and go (to the place of distribution), and take as
much as the vessels will hold, all returning with them full.

The tooth of Buddha is always brought forth in the middle of the
third month. Ten days beforehand the king grandly caparisons a
large elephant, on which he mounts a man who can speak distinctly,
and is dressed in royal robes, to beat a large drum, and make the
following proclamation:—“The Bodhisattva, during three
Asankhyeya-kalpas,9 manifested his activity, and
did not spare his own life. He gave up kingdom, city, wife, and
son; he plucked out his eyes and gave them to another;10 he cut off a piece of his own flesh to ransom the life
of a dove;10 he cut off his head and gave it as
an alms;11 he gave his body to feed a starving
tigress;11 he grudged not his marrow and his
brains. In many such ways as these did he undergo pain for the sake
of all living. And so it was, that, having become Buddha, he
continued in the world for forty-five years, preaching his Law,
teaching and transforming, so that those who had no rest found
rest, and the unconverted were converted. When his connexion with
the living was completed,12 he attained to
pari-nirvana (and died). Since that event, for 1497 years, the
light of the world has gone out,13 and all living
beings have had long-continued sadness. Behold! ten days after
this, Buddha’s tooth will be brought forth, and taken to the
Abhayagiri-vihara. Let all and each, whether monks or laics, who
wish to amass merit for themselves, make the roads smooth and in
good condition, grandly adorn the lanes and by-ways, and provide
abundant store of flowers and incense to be used as offerings to
it.”

When this proclamation is over, the king exhibits, so as to line
both sides of the road, the five hundred different bodily forms in
which the Bodhisattva has in the course of his history
appeared:—here as Sudana,14 there as
Sama;15 now as the king of elephants;16 and then as a stag or a horse.16 All
these figures are brightly coloured and grandly executed, looking
as if they were alive. After this the tooth of Buddha is brought
forth, and is carried along in the middle of the road. Everywhere
on the way offerings are presented to it, and thus it arrives at
the hall of Buddha in the Abhayagiri-vihara. There monks and laics
are collected in crowds. They burn incense, light lamps, and
perform all the prescribed services, day and night without ceasing,
till ninety days have been completed, when (the tooth) is returned
to the vihara within the city. On fast-days the door of that vihara
is opened, and the forms of ceremonial reverence are observed
according to the rules.

Forty le to the east of the Abhayagiri-vihara there is a hill,
with a vihara on it, called the Chaitya,17 where
there may be 2000 monks. Among them there is a Sramana of great
virtue, named Dharma-gupta,18 honoured and looked
up to by all the kingdom. He has lived for more than forty years in
an apartment of stone, constantly showing such gentleness of heart,
that he has brought snakes and rats to stop together in the same
room, without doing one another any harm.

NOTES

1 It is desirable to
translate {.} {.}, for which “inhabitants” or
“people” is elsewhere sufficient, here by “human
inhabitants.” According to other accounts Singhala was
originally occupied by Rakshasas or Rakshas, “demons who
devour men,” and “beings to be feared,” monstrous
cannibals or anthropophagi, the terror of the shipwrecked mariner.
Our author’s “spirits” {.} {.} were of a gentler
type. His dragons or nagas have come before us again and again.

2 That Sakyamuni ever
visited Ceylon is to me more than doubtful. Hardy, in M. B., pp.
207-213, has brought together the legends of three visits,—in
the first, fifth, and eighth years of his Buddhaship. It is plain,
however, from Fa-hien’s narrative, that in the beginning of
our fifth century, Buddhism prevailed throughout the island. Davids
in the last chapter of his “Buddhism” ascribes its
introduction to one of Asoka’s missions, after the Council of
Patna, under his son Mahinda, when Tissa, “the delight of the
gods,” was king (B.C. 250-230).

3 This would be what
is known as “Adam’s peak,” having, according to
Hardy (pp. 211, 212, notes), the three names of Selesumano,
Samastakuta, and Samanila. “There is an indentation on the
top of it,” a superficial hollow, 5 feet 3 3/4 inches long,
and about 2 1/2 feet wide. The Hindus regard it as the footprint of
Siva; the Mohameddans, as that of Adam; and the Buddhists, as in
the text,—as having been made by Buddha.

4 Meaning “The
Fearless Hill.” There is still the Abhayagiri tope, the
highest in Ceylon, according to Davids, 250 feet in height, and
built about B.C. 90, by Watta Gamini, in whose reign, about 160
years after the Council of Patna, and 330 years after the death of
Sakyamuni, the Tripitaka was first reduced to writing in
Ceylon;— “Buddhism,” p. 234.

5 We naturally suppose
that the merchant-offerer was a Chinese, as indeed the Chinese
texts say, and the fan such as Fa-hien had seen and used in his
native land.

6 This should be the
pippala, or bodhidruma, generally spoken of, in connexion with
Buddha, as the Bo tree, under which he attained to the Buddhaship.
It is strange our author should have confounded them as he seems to
do. In what we are told of the tree here, we have, no doubt, his
account of the planting, growth, and preservation of the famous Bo
tree, which still exists in Ceylon. It has been stated in a
previous note that Asoka’s son, Mahinda, went as the apostle
of Buddhism to Ceylon. By-and-by he sent for his sister
Sanghamitta, who had entered the order at the same time as himself,
and whose help was needed, some of the king’s female
relations having signified their wish to become nuns. On leaving
India, she took with her a branch of the sacred Bo tree at Buddha
Gaya, under which Sakyamuni had become Buddha. Of how the tree has
grown and still lives we have an account in Davids’
“Buddhism.” He quotes the words of Sir Emerson Tennent,
that it is “the oldest historical tree in the world;”
but this must be denied if it be true, as Eitel says, that the tree
at Buddha Gaya, from which the slip that grew to be this tree was
taken more than 2000 years ago, is itself still living in its
place. We must conclude that Fa-hien, when in Ceylon, heard neither
of Mahinda nor Sanghamitta.

7 Compare what is said
in chap. xvi, about the inquiries made at monasteries as to the
standing of visitors in the monkhood, and duration of their
ministry.

8 The phonetic values
of the two Chinese characters here are in Sanskrit sa; and va, bo
or bha. “Sabaean” is Mr. Beal’s reading of them,
probably correct. I suppose the merchants were Arabs, forerunners
of the so-called Moormen, who still form so important a part of the
mercantile community in Ceylon.

9 A Kalpa, we have
seen, denotes a great period of time; a period during which a
physical universe is formed and destroyed. Asankhyeya denotes the
highest sum for which a conventional term exists;— according
to Chinese calculations equal to one followed by seventeen ciphers;
according to Thibetan and Singhalese, equal to one followed by
ninety-seven ciphers. Every Maha-kalpa consists of four
Asankhyeya-kalpas. Eitel, p. 15.

12 He had been born
in the Sakya house, to do for the world what the character of all
his past births required, and he had done it.

13 They could no more
see him, the World-honoured one. Compare the Sacred Books of the
East, vol. xi, Buddhist Suttas, pp. 89, 121, and note on p. 89.

14 Sudana or Sudatta
was the name of the Bodhisattva in the birth which preceded his
appearance as Sakyamuni or Gotama, when he became the Supreme
Buddha. This period is known as the Vessantara Jataka, of which
Hardy, M. B., pp. 116-124, gives a long account; see also
“Buddhist Birth Stories,” the Nidana Katha, p. 158. In
it, as Sudana, he fulfilled “the Perfections,” his
distinguishing attribute being entire self-renunciation and
alms-giving, so that in the Nidana Katha is made to say
(“Buddhist Birth Stories,” p. 159):—

“This earth, unconscious though she be, and ignorant of
joy or grief,
Even she by my free-giving’s mighty power was
shaken seven times.”

Then, when he passed away, he appeared in the Tushita heaven, to
enter in due time the womb of Maha-maya, and be born as
Sakyamuni.

15 I take the name
Sama from Beal’s revised version. He says in a note that the
Sama Jataka, as well as the Vessantara, is represented in the
Sanchi sculptures. But what the Sama Jataka was I do not yet know.
But adopting this name, the two Chinese characters in the text
should be translated “the change into Sama.” Remusat
gives for them, “la transformation en eclair;” Beal, in
his first version, “his appearance as a bright flash of
light;” Giles, “as a flash of lightning.”
Julien’s Methode does not give the phonetic value in Sanskrit
of {.}.

16 In an analysis of
the number of times and the different forms in which Sakyamuni had
appeared in his Jataka births, given by Hardy (M. B., p. 100), it
is said that he had appeared six times as an elephant; ten times as
a deer; and four times as a horse.

17 Chaitya is a
general term designating all places and objects of religious
worship which have a reference to ancient Buddhas, and including
therefore Stupas and temples as well as sacred relics, pictures,
statues, &c. It is defined as “a fane,” “a
place for worship and presenting offerings.” Eitel, p. 141.
The hill referred to is the sacred hill of Mihintale, about eight
miles due east of the Bo tree;— Davids’ Buddhism, pp.
230, 231.

18 Eitel says (p.
31): “A famous ascetic, the founder of a school, which
flourished in Ceylon, A.D. 400.” But Fa-hien gives no
intimation of Dharma-gupta’s founding a school.

CHAPTER XXXIX

CREMATION OF AN ARHAT. SERMON OF A DEVOTEE.

South of the city seven le there is a vihara, called the
Maha-vihara, where 3000 monks reside. There had been among them a
Sramana, of such lofty virtue, and so holy and pure in his
observance of the disciplinary rules, that the people all surmised
that he was an Arhat. When he drew near his end, the king came to
examine into the point; and having assembled the monks according to
rule, asked whether the bhikshu had attained to the full degree of
Wisdom.1 They answered in the affirmative, saying
that he was an Arhat. The king accordingly, when he died, buried
him after the fashion of an Arhat, as the regular rules prescribed.
Four of five le east from the vihara there was reared a great pile
of firewood, which might be more than thirty cubits square, and the
same in height. Near the top were laid sandal, aloe, and other
kinds of fragrant wood.

On the four sides (of the pile) they made steps by which to
ascend it. With clean white hair-cloth, almost like silk, they
wrapped (the body) round and round.2 They made a
large carriage-frame, in form like our funeral car, but without the
dragons and fishes.3

At the time of the cremation, the king and the people, in
multitudes from all quarters, collected together, and presented
offerings of flowers and incense. While they were following the car
to the burial-ground,4 the king himself presented
flowers and incense. When this was finished, the car was lifted on
the pile, all over which oil of sweet basil was poured, and then a
light was applied. While the fire was blazing, every one, with a
reverent heart, pulled off his upper garment, and threw it, with
his feather-fan and umbrella, from a distance into the midst of the
flames, to assist the burning. When the cremation was over, they
collected and preserved the bones, and proceeded to erect a tope.
Fa-hien had not arrived in time (to see the distinguished Shaman)
alive, and only saw his burial.

At that time the king,5 who was a sincere
believer in the Law of Buddha and wished to build a new vihara for
the monks, first convoked a great assembly. After giving the monks
a meal of rice, and presenting his offerings (on the occasion), he
selected a pair of first-rate oxen, the horns of which were grandly
decorated with gold, silver, and the precious substances. A golden
plough had been provided, and the king himself turned up a furrow
on the four sides of the ground within which the building was
supposed to be. He then endowed the community of the monks with the
population, fields, and houses, writing the grant on plates of
metal, (to the effect) that from that time onwards, from generation
to generation, no one should venture to annul or alter it.

In this country Fa-hien heard an Indian devotee, who was
reciting a Sutra from the pulpit, say:—“Buddha’s
alms-bowl was at first in Vaisali, and now it is in
Gandhara.6 After so many hundred years’ (he
gave, when Fa-hien heard him, the exact number of years, but he has
forgotten it), “it will go to Western Tukhara;7 after so many hundred years, to Khoten; after so many
hundred years, to Kharachar;8 after so many
hundred years, to the land of Han; after so many hundred years, it
will come to Sinhala; and after so many hundred years, it will
return to Central India. After that, it will ascend to the Tushita
heaven; and when the Bodhisattva Maitreya sees it, he will say with
a sigh, ‘The alms-bowl of Sakyamuni Buddha is come;’
and with all the devas he will present to it flowers and incense
for seven days. When these have expired, it will return to
Jambudvipa, where it will be received by the king of the sea nagas,
and taken into his naga palace. When Maitreya shall be about to
attain to perfect Wisdom (and become Buddha), it will again
separate into four bowls,9 which will return to
the top of mount Anna,9 whence they came. After
Maitreya has become Buddha, the four deva kings will again think of
the Buddha (with their bowls as they did in the case of the
previous Buddha). The thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra-kalpa,
indeed, will all use the same alms-bowl; and when the bowl has
disappeared, the Law of Buddha will go on gradually to be
extinguished. After that extinction has taken place, the life of
man will be shortened, till it is only a period of five years.
During this period of a five years’ life, rice, butter, and
oil will all vanish away, and men will become exceedingly wicked.
The grass and trees which they lay hold of will change into swords
and clubs, with which they will hurt, cut, and kill one another.
Those among them on whom there is blessing will withdraw from
society among the hills; and when the wicked have exterminated one
another, they will again come forth, and say among themselves,
‘The men of former times enjoyed a very great longevity; but
through becoming exceedingly wicked, and doing all lawless things,
the length of our life has been shortened and reduced even to five
years. Let us now unite together in the practice of what is good,
cherishing a gentle and sympathising heart, and carefully
cultivating good faith and righteousness. When each one in this way
practises that faith and righteousness, life will go on to double
its length till it reaches 80,000 years. When Maitreya appears in
the world, and begins to turn the wheel of his Law, he will in the
first place save those among the disciples of the Law left by the
Sakya who have quitted their families, and those who have accepted
the three Refuges, undertaken the five Prohibitions and the eight
Abstinences, and given offerings to the three Precious Ones;
secondly and thirdly, he will save those between whom and
conversion there is a connexion transmitted from the
past.’”10

(Such was the discourse), and Fa-hien wished to write it down as
a portion of doctrine; but the man said, “This is taken from
no Sutra, it is only the utterance of my own mind.”

NOTES

1 Possibly, “and
asked the bhikshu,” &c. I prefer the other way of
construing, however.

2 It seems strange
that this should have been understood as a wrapping of the immense
pyre with the cloth. There is nothing in the text to necessitate
such a version, but the contrary. Compare “Buddhist
Suttas,” pp. 92, 93.

3 See the description
of a funeral car and its decorations in the Sacred Books of the
East, vol. xxviii, the Li Ki, Book XIX. Fa-hien’s {.} {.},
“in this (country),” which I have expressed by
“our,” shows that whatever notes of this cremation he
had taken at the time, the account in the text was composed after
his return to China, and when he had the usages there in his mind
and perhaps before his eyes. This disposes of all difficulty
occasioned by the “dragons” and “fishes.”
The {.} at the end is merely the concluding particle.

4 The pyre served the
purpose of a burial-ground or grave, and hence our author writes of
it as such.

5 This king must have
been Maha-nana (A.D. 410-432). In the time of his predecessor,
Upatissa (A.D. 368-410), the pitakas were first translated into
Singhalese. Under Maha-nana, Buddhaghosha wrote his commentaries.
Both were great builders of viharas. See the Mahavansa, pp. 247,
foll.

6 See chapter xii.
Fa-hien had seen it at Purushapura, which Eitel says was “the
ancient capital of Gandhara.”

7 Western Tukhara ({.}
{.}) is the same probably as the Tukhara ({.}) of chapter xii, a
king of which is there described as trying to carry off the bowl
from Purushapura.

8 North of the Bosteng
lake at the foot of the Thien-shan range (E. H., p. 56).

9 See chap. xii, note
9. Instead of “Anna” the Chinese recensions have Vina;
but Vina or Vinataka, and Ana for Sudarsana are names of one or
other of the concentric circles of rocks surrounding mount Meru,
the fabled home of the deva guardians of the bowl.

10 That is, those
whose Karma in the past should be rewarded by such conversion in
the present.

CHAPTER XL

AFTER TWO YEARS TAKES SHIP FOR CHINA. DISASTROUS PASSAGE TO
JAVA; AND THENCE TO CHINA; ARRIVES AT SHAN-TUNG; AND GOES TO
NANKING. CONCLUSION OR L’ENVOI BY ANOTHER WRITER.

Fa-hien abode in this country two years; and, in addition (to
his acquisitions in Patna), succeeded in getting a copy of the
Vinaya-pitaka of the Mahisasakah (school);1 the
Dirghagama and Samyuktagama2 (Sutras); and also
the Samyukta-sanchaya-pitaka;3— all being
works unknown in the land of Han. Having obtained these Sanskrit
works, he took passage in a large merchantman, on board of which
there were more than 200 men, and to which was attached by a rope a
smaller vessel, as a provision against damage or injury to the
large one from the perils of the navigation. With a favourable
wind, they proceeded eastwards for three days, and then they
encountered a great wind. The vessel sprang a leak and the water
came in. The merchants wished to go to the small vessel; but the
men on board it, fearing that too many would come, cut the
connecting rope. The merchants were greatly alarmed, feeling their
risk of instant death. Afraid that the vessel would fill, they took
their bulky goods and threw them into the water. Fa-hien also took
his pitcher4 and washing-basin, with some other
articles, and cast them into the sea; but fearing that the
merchants would cast overboard his books and images, he could only
think with all his heart of Kwan-she-yin,5 and
commit his life to (the protection of) the church of the land of
Han,6 (saying in effect), “I have travelled
far in search of our Law. Let me, by your dread and supernatural
(power), return from my wanderings, and reach my
resting-place!”

In this way the tempest7 continued day and
night, till on the thirteenth day the ship was carried to the side
of an island, where, on the ebbing of the tide, the place of the
leak was discovered, and it was stopped, on which the voyage was
resumed. On the sea (hereabouts) there are many pirates, to meet
with whom is speedy death. The great ocean spreads out, a boundless
expanse. There is no knowing east or west; only by observing the
sun, moon, and stars was it possible to go forward. If the weather
were dark and rainy, (the ship) went as she was carried by the
wind, without any definite course. In the darkness of the night,
only the great waves were to be seen, breaking on one another, and
emitting a brightness like that of fire, with huge turtles and
other monsters of the deep (all about). The merchants were full of
terror, not knowing where they were going. The sea was deep and
bottomless, and there was no place where they could drop anchor and
stop. But when the sky became clear, they could tell east and west,
and (the ship) again went forward in the right direction. If she
had come on any hidden rock, there would have been no way of
escape.

After proceeding in this way for rather more than ninety days,
they arrived at a country called Java-dvipa, where various forms of
error and Brahmanism are flourishing, while Buddhism in it is not
worth speaking of. After staying there for five months, (Fa-hien)
again embarked in another large merchantman, which also had on
board more than 200 men. They carried provisions for fifty days,
and commenced the voyage on the sixteenth day of the fourth
month.

Fa-hien kept his retreat on board the ship. They took a course
to the north-east, intending to fetch Kwang-chow. After more than a
month, when the night-drum had sounded the second watch, they
encountered a black wind and tempestuous rain, which threw the
merchants and passengers into consternation. Fa-hien again with all
his heart directed his thoughts to Kwan-she-yin and the monkish
communities of the land of Han; and, through their dread and
mysterious protection, was preserved to day-break. After day-break,
the Brahmans deliberated together and said, “It is having
this Sramana on board which has occasioned our misfortune and
brought us this great and bitter suffering. Let us land the bhikshu
and place him on some island-shore. We must not for the sake of one
man allow ourselves to be exposed to such imminent peril.” A
patron of Fa-hien, however, said to them, “If you land the
bhikshu, you must at the same time land me; and if you do not, then
you must kill me. If you land this Sramana, when I get to the land
of Han, I will go to the king, and inform against you. The king
also reveres and believes the Law of Buddha, and honours the
bhikshus.” The merchants hereupon were perplexed, and did not
dare immediately to land (Fa-hien).

At this time the sky continued very dark and gloomy, and the
sailing-masters looked at one another and made mistakes. More than
seventy days passed (from their leaving Java), and the provisions
and water were nearly exhausted. They used the salt-water of the
sea for cooking, and carefully divided the (fresh) water, each man
getting two pints. Soon the whole was nearly gone, and the
merchants took counsel and said, “At the ordinary rate of
sailing we ought to have reached Kwang-chow, and now the time is
passed by many days;—must we not have held a wrong
course?” Immediately they directed the ship to the
north-west, looking out for land; and after sailing day and night
for twelve days, they reached the shore on the south of mount
Lao,8 on the borders of the prefecture of
Ch’ang-kwang,8 and immediately got good
water and vegetables. They had passed through many perils and
hardships, and had been in a state of anxious apprehension for many
days together; and now suddenly arriving at this shore, and seeing
those (well-known) vegetables, the lei and kwoh,9
they knew indeed that it was the land of Han. Not seeing, however,
any inhabitants nor any traces of them, they did not know
whereabouts they were. Some said that they had not yet got to
Kwang-chow, and others that they had passed it. Unable to come to a
definite conclusion, (some of them) got into a small boat and
entered a creek, to look for some one of whom they might ask what
the place was. They found two hunters, whom they brought back with
them, and then called on Fa-hien to act as interpreter and question
them. Fa-hien first spoke assuringly to them, and then slowly and
distinctly asked them, “Who are you?” They replied,
“We are disciples of Buddha?” He then asked,
“What are you looking for among these hills?” They
began to lie,10 and said, “To-morrow is the
fifteenth day of the seventh month. We wanted to get some peaches
to present11 to Buddha.” He asked further,
“What country is this?” They replied, “This is
the border of the prefecture of Ch’ang-kwang, a part of
Ts’ing-chow under the (ruling) House of Tsin.” When
they heard this, the merchants were glad, immediately asked for (a
portion of) their money and goods, and sent men to
Ch’ang-kwang city.

The prefect Le E was a reverent believer in the Law of Buddha.
When he heard that a Sramana had arrived in a ship across the sea,
bringing with him books and images, he immediately came to the
seashore with an escort to meet (the traveller), and receive the
books and images, and took them back with him to the seat of his
government. On this the merchants went back in the direction of
Yang-chow;12 (but) when (Fa-hien) arrived at
Ts’ing-chow, (the prefect there)13 begged
him (to remain with him) for a winter and a summer. After the
summer retreat was ended, Fa-hien, having been separated for a long
time from his (fellow-)masters, wished to hurry to
Ch’ang-gan; but as the business which he had in hand was
important, he went south to the Capital;14 and at
an interview with the masters (there) exhibited the Sutras and the
collection of the Vinaya (which he had procured).

After Fa-hien set out from Ch’ang-gan, it took him six
years to reach Central India;15 stoppages there
extended over (other) six years; and on his return it took him
three years to reach Ts’ing-chow. The countries through which
he passed were a few under thirty. From the sandy desert westwards
on to India, the beauty of the dignified demeanour of the monkhood
and of the transforming influence of the Law was beyond the power
of language fully to describe; and reflecting how our masters had
not heard any complete account of them, he therefore (went on)
without regarding his own poor life, or (the dangers to be
encountered) on the sea upon his return, thus incurring hardships
and difficulties in a double form. He was fortunate enough, through
the dread power of the three Honoured Ones,15 to
receive help and protection in his perils; and therefore he wrote
out an account of his experiences, that worthy readers might share
with him in what he had heard and said.15

It was in the year Keah-yin,16 the twelfth
year of the period E-he of the (Eastern) Tsin dynasty, the
year-star being in Virgo-Libra, in the summer, at the close of the
period of retreat, that I met the devotee Fa-hien. On his arrival I
lodged him with myself in the winter study,17 and
there, in our meetings for conversation, I asked him again and
again about his travels. The man was modest and complaisant, and
answered readily according to the truth. I thereupon advised him to
enter into details where he had at first only given a summary, and
he proceeded to relate all things in order from the beginning to
the end. He said himself, “When I look back on what I have
gone through, my heart is involuntarily moved, and the perspiration
flows forth. That I encountered danger and trod the most perilous
places, without thinking of or sparing myself, was because I had a
definite aim, and thought of nothing but to do my best in my
simplicity and straightforwardness. Thus it was that I exposed my
life where death seemed inevitable, if I might accomplish but a
ten-thousandth part of what I hoped.” These words affected me
in turn, and I thought:—“This man is one of those who
have seldom been seen from ancient times to the present. Since the
Great Doctrine flowed on to the East there has been no one to be
compared with Hien in his forgetfulness of self and search for the
Law. Henceforth I know that the influence of sincerity finds no
obstacle, however great, which it does not overcome, and that force
of will does not fail to accomplish whatever service it undertakes.
Does not the accomplishing of such service arise from forgetting
(and disregarding) what is (generally) considered as important, and
attaching importance to what is (generally) forgotten?

NOTES

1 No. 1122 in
Nanjio’s Catalogue, translated into Chinese by Buddhajiva and
a Chinese Sramana about A.D. 425. Mahisasakah means “the
school of the transformed earth,” or “the sphere within
which the Law of Buddha is influential.” The school is one of
the subdivisions of the Sarvastivadah.

2 Nanjio’s 545
and 504. The Agamas are Sutras of the hinayana, divided, according
to Eitel, pp. 4, 5, into four classes, the first or Dirghagamas
(long Agamas) being treatises on right conduct, while the third
class contains the Samyuktagamas (mixed Agamas).

3 Meaning
“Miscellaneous Collections;” a sort of fourth Pitaka.
See Nanjio’s fourth division of the Canon, containing Indian
and Chinese miscellaneous works. But Dr. Davids says that no work
of this name is known either in Sanskrit or Pali literature.

4 We have in the text
a phonetisation of the Sanskrit Kundika, which is explained in
Eitel by the two characters that follow, as=“washing
basin,” but two things evidently are intended.

6 At his novitiate
Fa-hien had sought the refuge of the “three Precious
Ones” (the three Refuges {.} {.} of last chapter), of which
the congregation or body of the monks was one; and here his
thoughts turn naturally to the branch of it in China. His words in
his heart were not exactly words of prayer, but very nearly so.

8 They had got to the
south of the Shan-tung promontory, and the foot of mount Lao, which
still rises under the same name on the extreme south of the
peninsula, east from Keao Chow, and having the district of
Tsieh-mih on the east of it. All the country there is included in
the present Phing-too Chow of the department Lae-chow. The name
Phing-too dates from the Han dynasty, but under the dynasty of the
After Ch’e {.} {.}, (A.D. 479-501), it was changed into
Ch’ang-kwang. Fa-hien may have lived, and composed the
narrative of his travels, after the change of name was adopted. See
the Topographical Tables of the different Dynasties ({.} {.} {.}
{.} {.}), published in 1815.

9 What these
vegetables exactly were it is difficult to say; and there are
different readings of the characters for them. Williams’
Dictionary, under kwoh, brings the two names together in a phrase,
but the rendering of it is simply “a soup of simples.”
For two or three columns here, however, the text appears to me
confused and imperfect.

10 I suppose these
men were really hunters; and, when brought before Fa-hien, because
he was a Sramana, they thought they would please him by saying they
were disciples of Buddha. But what had disciples of Buddha to do
with hunting and taking life? They were caught in their own trap,
and said they were looking for peaches.

11 The Chinese
character here has occurred twice before, but in a different
meaning and connexion. Remusat, Beal, and Giles take it as
equivalent to “to sacrifice.” But his followers do not
“sacrifice” to Buddha. That is a priestly term, and
should not be employed of anything done at Buddhistic services.

12 Probably the
present department of Yang-chow in Keang-soo; but as I have said in
a previous note, the narrative does not go on so clearly as it
generally does.

14 Probably not
Ch’ang-gan, but Nan-king, which was the capital of the
Eastern Tsin dynasty under another name.

15 The whole of this
paragraph is probably Fa-hien’s own conclusion of his
narrative. The second half of the second sentence, both in
sentiment and style in the Chinese text, seems to necessitate our
ascribing it to him, writing on the impulse of his own thoughts, in
the same indirect form which he adopted for his whole narrative.
There are, however, two peculiar phraseologies in it which might
suggest the work of another hand. For the name India, where the
first 15 is placed, a character is employed which
is similarly applied nowhere else; and again, “the three
Honoured Ones,” at which the second 15 is
placed, must be the same as “the three Precious Ones,”
which we have met with so often; unless we suppose that {.} {.} is
printed in all the revisions for {.} {.}, “the World-honoured
one,” which has often occurred. On the whole, while I accept
this paragraph as Fa-hien’s own, I do it with some
hesitation. That the following and concluding paragraph is from
another hand, there can be no doubt. And it is as different as
possible in style from the simple and straightforward narrative of
Fa-hien.

16 There is an error
of date here, for which it is difficult to account. The year
Keah-yin was A.D. 414; but that was the tenth year of the period
E-he, and not the twelfth, the cyclical designation of which was
Ping-shin. According to the preceding paragraph, Fa-hien’s
travels had occupied him fifteen years, so that counting from A.D.
399, the year Ke-hae, as that in which he set out, the year of his
getting to Ts’ing-chow would have been Kwei-chow, the ninth
year of the period E-he; and we might join on “This year
Keah-yin” to that paragraph, as the date at which the
narrative was written out for the bamboo-tablets and the silk, and
then begins the Envoy, “In the twelfth year of E-he.”
This would remove the error as it stands at present, but
unfortunately there is a particle at the end of the second date
({.}), which seems to tie the twelfth year of E-he to Keah-yin, as
another designation of it. The “year-star” is the
planet Jupiter, the revolution of which, in twelve years,
constitutes “a great year.” Whether it would be
possible to fix exactly by mathematical calculation in what year
Jupiter was in the Chinese zodiacal sign embracing part of both
Virgo and Scorpio, and thereby help to solve the difficulty of the
passage, I do not know, and in the meantime must leave that
difficulty as I have found it.

17 We do not know who
the writer of the Envoy was. “The winter study or
library” would be the name of the apartment in his monastery
or house, where he sat and talked with Fa-hien.